Find shorts by Georgian directors at Hong Kong film fest

Georgian filmmakers Giorgi Tavartkiladze and Rati Tsiteladze will bring their recent short works to this year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival, which is scheduled to open later this month.

The directors will bring their respective shorts Bad People and Prisoner of Society to two competitive sections, with the former film having its premiere before it receives the Best Action Short Award from the Indie Short Fest in Los Angeles at the end of the month.

On its part, Tsiteladze’s award-winning work will add another festival to its belt with the screening at the Hong Kong event.

Debuting in the Short Film Competition Programme I, Bad People follows Gia, a participant in the Georgian Civil War of the early 1990s, in the realm of widespread unrest, economic and social hardship and political chaos in the country.

Thrust in the grim reality of two opposing armed groups facing off in downtown Tbilisi — in a mirror representation of the real-life events of the time — Gia seeks to get hold of medicine for his son, while also finding himself in encounters with his former schoolmate now fighting on the other side of the divide.

Based on screenplay by Tavartkiladze and Vladimer Katcharava, the producer for the short, Bad People brings to screen a roster of Georgian artists.

On the documentary side of exploring the contemporary Georgian society, Tsiteladze’s Prisoner of Society delves into social and family rejection experienced by a transgender woman in the country, exposing “hidden fears, hopes and motives” of her family members within a conservative society.

[The protagonist is] locked away from the outside world for the past decade, trapped between her personal desire for freedom and traditional expectations of her parents that threaten their unity”, a summary for the short said.

The young director’s work has been recognised with the best documentary award of the Tampere Film Festival and the NDU International Film Festival as well as a nomination for a European Film Academy prize.

The Hong Kong International Film Festival will run between 18 March-1 April.