Georgian directors to be featured at Trieste Film Festival

Two widely-acclaimed Georgian films will be screened to audiences at a leading east-central European cinema festival in Italy later this month.

Dea Kulumbegashvili’s short Lethe and documentary film, See You in Chechnya by Alexander Kvatashidze, will be among over 100 selected films at the Trieste Film Festival.

Opening on January 20 in the coastal city Trieste on Italy’s north-eastern border with Slovenia, the festival will run through January 29.

See the trailer for Alexander Kvatashidze’s documentary ‘See You in Chechnya’ below:

Founded in 1989, the event will celebrate its 28th edition, with organisers inviting cinema enthusiasts to see feature, short and documentary works at 15 venues hosting the festival.

Selected for the official program, Kulumbegashvili’s film will screen on January 22 at the Cinema Theatre Miela.

With the film Lethe, I want to bring the audience to the world of rural Georgia in the midst of the beautiful ritual of the autumn harvest”, said the Georgian director.

The Georgian-French co-production Lethe first premiered in 2016 at the Director's Fortnight festival in Cannes, France.

The short production received the Cinematic Achievement Award at the Thessaloniki International Short Film Festival in Greece in November of last year, where it was praised as "an extraordinary film that in a manner is not only unforgettable but also adds a step forward in cinema", by festival director and curator Yiannis Zachopoulos.

A scene from Dea Kulumbegashvili’s short film, ‘Lethe’. Photo: www.commeaucinema.com.

The other Georgian cinema project featuring in the Trieste festival program, filmmaker Alexander Kvatashidze’s See You in Chechnya will screen at the same venue on January 25.

The documentary follows the director and his experiences in late-1990s, war-torn Chechnya, where Kvatashidze finds himself in the midst of the conflict after deciding to pursue his romantic attachment to a French photographer who heads into the warzone from Georgia.

During its production phase, the film won the HBO Europe prize in the Last Stop Trieste documentary co-production section of last year’s festival.

Apart from film screenings, the event will also offer industry-related events including networking opportunities and co-production meetings.