Cannes film festival debuts Dea Kulumbegashvili’s new work

A new film by award-winning Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili will premiere at the Directors’ Fortnight festival, which runs alongside the famous Cannes Film Festival in France next month.

Kulumbegashvili made history after her first film Invisible Spaces was the first Georgian work to be selected for the Cannes Film Festival in 2014.

Now her latest short film Lethe has been picked among 11 short projects by directors from around the world to screen at the 48th annual Directors’ Fortnight. The festival will present feature and short films from May 12-22.

The poster advertising Dea Kulumbegashvili's new film 'Lethe'. Photo from Arseni Khachaturan/Facebook.

Kulumbegashvili's film will make its world premiere at the French event. The film festival is also scheduled to screen 18 feature-length works within its program.

The smaller festival was established by the French Directors' Guild in 1969 after a nationwide protest in 1968 by students and workers in France resulted in the disruption of that year's Cannes Film Festival. The event runs in parallel to the bigger festival.

This year the films screened at Directors’ Fortnight will also be shown in Paris, Marseille, Geneva, Rome, Milan, Florence and Brussels after the conclusion of the Cannes Film Festival.

The full list of feature and short films scheduled to be shown at the Directors’ Fortnight festival can be viewed on the official website here.

Meanwhile Kulumbegashvili's new film will also be shown to audiences at this year's Batumi International Art-House Film Festival in Georgia.

The festival will take place at Georgia's seaside city from September 18-25.