Documentary on Georgian women chess legends takes Free Zone Film Festival prize
Audience members voted for their favourites at the festival that handed out prizes this week. Photo via Free Zone Film Festival.
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Georgian directors Tatia Skhirtladze and Ana Khazaradze have been distinguished for their documentary Glory to the Queen, a film taking a look at world-famous legacy of Soviet-era Georgian women chess players, with an audience prize at the Free Zone Film Festival in Serbia.
The two filmmakers' work earned the award of cinema enthusiasts who voted for their favourite, with Skhirtladze on stage in Belgrade this week.
Dedicated to human rights, social issues and regional and international matters, the 2005-founded festival handed out its prizes after screenings in three cities in Serbia.
The Georgian documentary, a Georgian-Austrian-Serbian co-production, celebrates four chess players from the country who "revolutionised women's chess" in the second half of the 20th century.
Nona Gaprindashvili, Nana Alexandria, Maia Chiburdanidze and Nana Ioseliani, and the major mark they made on the international game between the 1960s-1980s, are squarely in the lens of the two directors, who released the film earlier this year.
Between 1962-1988, competitors from Soviet Georgia dominated the Women's World Chess Championship, with Gaprindashvili and Chiburdanidze sweeping all 10 titles held in the period. Alexandria and Ioseliani finished as runner-ups in 1975 and 1988 respectively.
The two directors worked to obtain archival footage in Georgia and also build relationships of trust with some of the former world champions before they could use personal stories for the documentary.
The filming even spawned what the chess legends themselves called a "historic moment" when they were brought together by the film crew on a train, reuniting the players for the first time in three decades.
Skhirtladze and Khazaradze also see the film as a feminist statement, with the former telling Film New Europe it was a "chess film that does not focus on the technique of the sport so much as the metaphor behind it - the struggles on the road towards self-fulfilment and the revolt against a powerful male-dominated system".
The Free Zone Film Festival ran between November 5-10 in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Niš.