France's Cinemed festival to premiere short by Vajiko Chachkhiani

Artist and film director Vajiko Chachkhiani and producer Tekla Machavariani will be in France's Mediterranean city of Montpellier later this month to attend the premiere of their short The Bee Fall at the International Mediterranean Film Festival Montpellier (Cinemed).

The second-largest film festival in France will host two screenings of the 2021 work in its Short Films Competition section, with the Nushi Film-produced fiction bringing its screenplay about a family drama to the big screen.

Chachkhiani's film is centred around a generational relationship between Giorgi, a perpetrator of domestic abuse, and his mother. The latter finds herself in a position of having to make a decision of either covering for Giorgi after he abuses his wife, or siding with the survivor of the attack.

Based on a screenplay by the director and featuring cinematography by Shalva Sokurashvili, editing by Levan Butkhuzi and sets by Sandro Sulakauri, the film also involves a musical score by Sandro Chinchaladze, also known for his artist name TeTe Noise.

An artist himself, Chachkhiani is currently based between Berlin and Tbilisi. His works include Living Dog Among Dead Lions, which served as Georgia's national pavilion at the 2017 Venice Art Biennial.

The creative has been awarded the prestigious Rubens Promotional Award of the Contemporary Art Museum Siegen in Germany, and was shortlisted for the Future Generation Art Prize in Kyiv, Ukraine the same year.

The Bee Fall will screen at the Cinemed festival on October 18 and 21, with the entire programme available online.