Dea Kulumbegashvili takes Toronto International Film Festival prize for 'Beginning'

Dea Kulumbegashvili has collected the FIPRESCI international film critics award at the Toronto International Film Festival for her feature debut Beginning, with the film praised for an "emotionally compelling debut".

The Georgian director had seen her work selected for the Canadian event as well as San Sebastian and Bergen festival programmes, among others, this year. The critics' prize follows nominations for the Golden Seashell prize in San Sebastian and Cinema Extraordinaire award at the Norwegian fest.

The team of critics in Toronto described the feature as a "brave and fresh quiet storm of a film", and an "emotionally compelling debut feature by a filmmaker whose voice feels established and one to watch." The judge panel for the prize involved Jon Asp, Jihane Bougrine and Adriana Fernández.

In Beginning, Kulumbegashvili shows an experience of harassment by a Jehovah's witness and her family in a remote town in Georgia, where both the police and an extremist group subject them to violence.

Yana [...] is in shock after angry locals burn down her place of worship during a service. Her husband David manages to obtain CCTV footage of the attack [...] [but] in the remote Georgian village where they are living with their young son, his search for justice triggers a chain of events that will find the family totally isolated and entirely at the mercy of the hostile local police," a synopsis for the film reads.

The director told Cineuropa she wanted "audiences to identify with this unsettling condition where experiences cannot be simply classified as true or false" with her work. Kulumbegashvili wrote the screenplay alongside director Rati Oneli.

The film features Ia Sukhitashvili, Oneli and Kakha Kintsurashvili as protagonists, with editing by Matthieu Taponier and a score composed by internationally acclaimed producer Nicolas Jaar. The film is produced by First Picture, Zadig Films and O.F.A.

Supported by the Georgian National Film Center, the Georgian-French co-production has also seen support by the Residence of the Cannes Cinéfondation, the Sam Spiegel International Film Lab in Jerusalem, Sofia Meetings and Sarajevo’s CineLink, as well as the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund.

The full list of Toronto Film Festival winners can be viewed on the official website.