Award-winning Georgian film in "European Oscar" shortlist

Georgian director George Ovashvili’s award-winning film Corn Island has made it into the European Film Awards (EFA) Selection shortlist, from which nominations for the final awards will be selected later this year. 

Commonly known as the European Oscar, the EFA Selection shortlist features 52 films in competition for the prestigious award in Berlin in December. The final nominees for the prize will be revealed on November 7.

Corn Island is a collaborative production of Georgia, Germany, Kazakhstan, the Czech Republic, France and Hungary.

The film tells a story about an old Abkhazian farmer and his granddaughter as they try to make a living by growing corn on a temporary island created by the Enguri River that divides Georgia from its breakaway region of Abkhazia after the 1992-1993 war.

A mix of Georgian and foreign cast feature in the film, which won the Jury Prize at the Locarno Film Festival and Audience Choice at the Fribourg Film Festival in Switzerland. Last year the film was nominated for an Oscar in the Foreign Language film category.

This is not the first nomination for the director George Ovashvili at the European Film Awards. His film Gagma Napiri (The Other Bank) was at the top three movies to struggle for the title of the Best European Discovery of the Year in 2009 but the prize went to Romanian Katalin Varga.

The EFA were established by the European Film Academy in 1988 and feature prizes for feature-length and documentary films as well as animated works and short clips. The 52 selected films will also vie for additional special prizes at the upcoming EFA ceremony; such as the People’s Choice and the Young Audience Award.