Georgian filmmaker’s Tbilisi Zoo documentary screens at Portuguese film fest

A documentary film by a young Georgian filmmaker about a teenage volunteer at Tbilisi Zoo is set to screen at a Portuguese film festival for emerging directors.

Locals and visitors of Portugal's north-western seaside city Espinho are welcomed to the opening of the New Directors - New Films Festival (also known as FEST) this afternoon. The film festival aimed to enable up-and-coming filmmakers to show their skills and creative vision on an international stage.

The festival is celebrating its 12^th annual edition this year and will take place from June 20-27, featuring around 300 films from young creators all over the world.

Among the hundreds of short and feature-length films will be a piece titled The Enclosed Space by 26 year-old Georgian filmmaker Levan Shubashvili.

The 18-minute documentary will screen in Espinho on June 25 and follow 13-year-old Tbilisi local Luka Tatishvili, a volunteer at Tbilisi Zoo before, during and after the devastating June 2015 flood in Georgia's capital.

The New Directors - New Films Festival is being held for the 12th time this year. Photo from the festival/Facebook.

The young volunteer cared for birds and animals at the Zoo almost every day after school and came back to continue his work after the June 13, 2015 natural disaster that killed 281 animals in the Zoo and destroyed much of its infrastructure.

See the aftermath of the June 2015 flood in Tbilisi in our interactive web documentary ‘Tbilisi flood: A city that changed overnight’.

Shubashvili's film screened at the Georgian Panorama section of the 2015 Tbilisi International Film Festival.

His documentary was also included in the week-long program of Georgian culture in London in April this year, which celebrated the 25th anniversary of Georgia's independence.

Born in Tbilisi, Shubashvili graduated from the Shota Rustaveli Theatre and Film Georgia State University in 2013 with a degree in Film Direction.

The young filmmaker produced his first work Melodrama in 2012 before making four more short films over the last three years.

Shubashvili also worked as video assistant for award-winning feature film Corn Island by Giorgi Ovashvili in 2014.

The New Directors - New Films Festival is divided into sections featuring works in and out of official competition, with two main contest categories involving short films by directors aged younger than 30 and feature films from directors who are in the process of filming their first or second production.

The Portuguese film event will also involve non-competition sections for young viewers and an educational segment that involves workshops led by "some of the film industry's biggest names".

The section represents "one of the largest and most comprehensive film forums in existence, attracting more than 400 filmmakers" from across the world, said organisers of the festival. The festival will also involve industry meetings and other activities before its conclusion next week.

The full program of films screened at the New Directors - New Films Festival can be viewed on the official website here.