Palm Springs Film Fest to screen ‘Namme’ by filmmaker Zaza Khalvashi
A still from ‘Namme’, a fantasy drama by Zaza Khalvashi. Photo: Nordic-Baltic Film Festival.
Tweet 
Share
Filmmaker Zaza Khalvashi’s new feature Namme — selected earlier this year as Georgia’s bid at the next Academy Awards — will be screened at an anniversary Palm Springs International Film Festival opening in California next week.
Dubbed “the premier presenter of world cinema on the North American continent” by FilmFreeway, the Festival will bring the Georgian-Lithuanian co-production to its approximately 130,000 viewers between January 3-14.
Premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival and seen by audiences of the Tbilisi International Film Festival and Göteborg Film Festival, Namme will now bring its roster of Georgian actors to the American Festival.
Khalvashi’s work follows a girl guardian of a healing spring (played by Mariska Diasamidze) in a mountainous Georgian village, entrusted with overseeing the healing waters by her father.
By taking up the task Namme continues the family role, however a hydro power station constructed nearby heralds environmental changes for the area.
An unexpected development sees the spring water disappear one day, with Namme’s father remembering an old custom that says it will only return if sacrifice is made for the cause.
The film was shortlisted among six works shot by Georgian directors before being selected as Georgia’s submission to the next Academy Awards.
The Palm Springs Festival is noted for selecting the highest number of foreign-language Academy Awards nominees among North American festivals.
This year organisers will celebrate the 30th edition of the event.
Filmmaker Zaza Khalvashi’s Namme will be Georgia’s bid for the next Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film, after a jury team in Tbilisi announced the feature as winner of a national contest.
Six films will be vying to represent Georgia for the Best Foreign Language Film of the next Academy Awards after the Georgian National Film Centre announced the shortlist earlier this month.
Georgian director Zaza Khalvashi will premiere his latest feature Namme to audiences attending next month’s Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), a major cinema event in Asia.
Giorgi Shvelidze, the cinematographer for Georgia’s Academy Award bid Namme by Zaza Khalvashi, was revealed as the winner in the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Spotlight Award in Los Angeles today.
Cinematographer Giorgi Shvelidze has become the first Georgian film professional to be nominated for the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) annual Outstanding Achievement Awards, as the shortlist for the prize was unveiled earlier today.
Director Giorgi Tavartkiladze’s award-winning short Bad People, honoured earlier this spring in London, will be part of the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival, a major North American event for short-form cinema.
Internationally recognised Georgian film director Zaza Khalvashi has passed away at the age of 62. Khalvashi’s drama fantasy Namme about a girl guardian of a healing spring in a mountainous Georgian village was selected as Georgia's bid for the Academy Awards in 2019. Reportedly, the Georgian film director, who was born in the Georgian Black Sea town of Batumi on May 17, 1957, died of heart attack.
Drawing Lots, the final film by the late Georgian director Zaza Khalvashi, will have its world premiere by screening in competition at this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam that opens in the Dutch city next month.