CineDOC-Tbilisi festival set to celebrate documentary filmmaking

A wide range of works by internationally recognised documentary filmmakers will go on screen for visitors of this year’s CineDOC-Tbilisi International Documentary Film Festival opening next month.

The expanded festival will showcase 67 films by directors from 30 countries, marking the fifth edition of the annual event launching on May 11.

Organisers of the festival unveiled its program on Wednesday and said selected films would cover five themes reflecting five "human needs": solidarity, safety, passion, faith and imagination.

Led by the International Competition, the program will also feature the Focus Caucasus, CivilDOC and CineDOC Young sections for regional highlight, focusing on social issues and young audiences respectively.

Creative documentaries that deal with labour rights, migration, love, religion and many other topics will compete for the awards of the festival,” said a preview for 2017 CineDOC-Tbilisi.

The featured works will include six releases by Georgian directors, including DOK Leipzig Golden Dove award-winning film Listen to the Silence by Mariam Chachia and Levan Koguashvili’s Gogita’s New Life, which was honoured with Special Mention of the Docudays UA festival last month.

See You in Chechnya, Alexander Kvatashidze’s exploration of effects of war on people, will narrate his real-life experience to the viewers. Meanwhile Didube, the Last Stop by Shorena Tevzadze will follow Niko, owner of a small veterinarian clinic and shop in the middle of a busy train and bus station in Georgia's capital Tbilisi.

A still from 'Normal Autistic Film' by Miroslav Janek. Photo: Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival.

The festival’s selection of films by Georgian directors will be rounded off by screenings of Hitchhiking Patagonia by Beso Gvenetadze and Life is Be by Vakhtang Kuntsev-Gabashvili.

Gvenetadze’s production follows the filmmaker during his 3,000 kilometre-long hitchhiking travel throughout Argentina and Chile in 2016, and his recorded "random conversations with the drivers” on his journey.

Life is Be, a 2016 feature, will highlight five distinctive characters living in city of Telavi of eastern Georgia’s winemaking Kakheti region.

Over in the International Competition section, viewers will be invited to see a range of selections including the 2016 feature Normal Autistic Film by Miroslav Janek.

Mariam Chachia's award-winning documentary 'Listen to the Silence' will be part of the festival program. Photo: CineDOC-Tbilisi.

The Czech director’s work follows five autistic kids with a question "who’s to determine what’s normal — living in a constant rush while disregarding the absurdity of modern life, or wistfully seeking order, peace and tranquillity in the world?"

More pertinent questions will be raised by David Borenstein’s feature Dream Empire, which "dissects the chaotic, reckless, often mind-boggling world of the globalised real estate market”.

In addition to the principal segments of the festival, side sections will include works on subjects ranging from migration to labour rights to intimate sexual experiences.

Workshops and industry meetings involving young filmmakers and producers will also be part of the 2017 event.

David Borenstein's documentary 'Dream Empire' will explore the global real estate market and its effects on one individual. Photo: International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.

CineDOC-Tbilisi is promoted as "the only international documentary film festival of the Caucasus region”, with the annual date followed by year-long series of film screenings throughout Georgia’s regions, known as CineDOC-On Tour.

It also became the first Georgian film festival to be selected in the Creative Europe program of the European Union in 2016. The program was established in 2014 as a six-year EU program to support cultural and creative projects across Europe.

The 2017 edition of CineDOC-Tbilisi will run through May 16.