Georgian filmmakers triumph at Bulgarian festival

Two Georgian films triumphed at a new international film festival in Burgas, Bulgaria that celebrates films made in and documentaries about the Black Sea region.

Georgian filmmakers Levan Tutberidze and Nikoloz Bezhanishvili took home two of the three principal prizes at the inaugural Burgas International Film Festival, which showcased 24 feature, short and documentary works split into three sections.

Held from July 22-28 in Bulgaria's fourth largest city, the final results of the Burgas International Film Festival were announced earlier today, where it was revealed Tutberidze's 2015 feature Moira and Bezhanishvili's documentary Black Square were winners of the Best Feature Film and Best Documentary awards.

The two works were highlighted by a team of four cinema experts on the judging panel.

See the trailer for director Levan Tutberidze's feature film 'Moira' below:

For Tutberidze, the Bulgarian festival prize was the film’s second award of the year after Ketevan Tskhakaia collected Best Supporting Actress Prize for her part in Moira at the 2016 Beijing International Film Festival.

The film also won the SIGNIS Award at the 2015 San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain and was named the Best Film of the 2015 Asian World Film Festival in Los Angeles, the United States.

Furthermore, Moira was selected as Georgia's bid for the 2016 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

The film’s plot centres around a man who, having been recently released from prison, attempts to rescue his family from poverty by buying a small fishing boat, pinning his hopes that it will bring him a better fortune.

Meanwhile Black Square by Nikoloz Bezhanishvili screened at the 2015 CineDOC-Tbilisi International Documentary Film Festival, 2015 Cronograf International Documentary Film Festival in Moldova and 2015 ALBA Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in New York, the United States.

See the trailer for director Nikoloz Bezhanishvili's documentary 'Black Square' below:

The documentary work follows a Georgian woman named Anna after her release from prison into a post-Soviet country she struggles to recognise. Having missed the collapse of the system and subsequent civil wars in Georgia, Anna also discovers her friends and family have grown distant from her and can only relate to other women facing public contempt for their background of drug usage.

The inaugural Burgas International Film Festival focused heavily on films from Black Sea countries including Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Armenia and Turkey. Other selected films came from Germany and Italy as well as co-productions between Eastern Europe and North America.

In total the Bulgarian event screened four films by Georgian directors. The award-winning documentary When the Earth Seems to Be Light by Salome Machaidze, Tamuna Karumidze and David Meskhi screened on July 24 and The Summer of Frozen Fountains by Vano Burduli screened on July 25.

The festival's organisers said the event aimed to "present current trends in Bulgarian and international cinema practice and provoke intercultural dialogue". The film festival was supported by local agencies as well as cultural and diplomatic institutions from Italy and Portugal.