Largest Eastern European festival premieres Georgian filmmaker’s new work

The largest film festival in Central and Eastern Europe will host the world premiere of a new film by Georgian director Rusudan Glurjidze about families living in the aftermath of the Abkhazia war in the early 1990s.

Glurjidze's feature work, named House of Others, is a co-production between Georgia, Russia, Spain and Croatia, and will screen at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival that opens on July 1 in the Czech Republic.

Narrating a story of two families that survive the destructive Abkhazia war in the early 1990s, the film shows civilians on the winning side being haunted by memories as they are given houses cleared of their expelled owners.

A scene from the feature film 'House of Others'. Photo from www.gorkagomezandreu.com.

The Karlovy Vary Film Festival's preview of the film praised it for its visual qualities that "hold their ground with those of [famed late Soviet director Andrei] Tarkovsky and [Russian filmmaker Andrey] Zvyagintsev, confirming the unprecedented rise of Georgian cinema."

Glurjidze's work features a cast of Georgian actors. This is her debut feature film.

First presented as an unfinished project at the 2013 Sarajevo Film Festival’s Regional Forum in Bosnia and Herzegovina, House of Others will have its world premiere in the East of the West - Competition section of the Czech festival.

A scene from the feature film 'House of Others'. Photo from the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

The section will also screen 11 other works and will be one of three categories of the 51st film festival. Official Selection and Documentary sections are also in the program.

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival presents around 200 films from across the world every year while also staging events for cinema industry figures and experts.

Founded in 1946, the festival was granted the prestigious category A classification by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations a decade later.

This year's Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will run from July 1-9.