Ukraine in Focus fest to showcase cinema from country in Tbilisi
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A selection of varied cinema works from Ukraine will host audience of different ages at Tbilisi’s Amirani Cinema Theatre to mark the festival Ukraine in Focus starting later this week.
From Maryna Stepanska’s story of a young couple meeting at a pivotal moment in their lives in Falling, to a micro program of Odessa Film Festival Award-winning films, the event will celebrate its fourth edition in the Georgian capital.
The event will open on Thursday with Slovak filmmaker Peter Bebjak’s 2017 thriller The Line, which portrays the criminal world in borderlands between Slovakia and Ukraine ahead of the former country’s 2007 accession to the European Union.
The Line leaps to the top of its genre class with muscular direction from [...] Bebjak; a genre-savvy screenplay by Peter Balko; unusual locations spectacularly captured; a propulsive score; and impressive performances [by involved actors]”, said a review of the work by the website Variety.
The contemporary cinema from the country will also be represented by Maryna Stepanska’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival nominee Falling.
It has been summarised as "a story about the post-revolutionary generation of young Ukrainian people looking for their place in a modern Ukraine”, and centres around two protagonists who "experience few days of happiness together”.
The festival’s selection of acclaimed works will be highlighted by Odessa Film Festival Award-winning productions including Independence Day by Antonina Noyabryova.
Independence Day through the eyes of the young and castaway population of Ukrainian sleeping areas. [It is a tragicomedy] about failing to realise own freedom against the fallen values ââof previous generations”, said a preview from the Tbilisi festival.
Noyabryova’s film was distinguished with prizes including the Special Jury Diploma of the National Competition at the Odessa festival.
For younger audiences, screenings of Ukraine in Focus will showcase Yuriy Kovalyov’s adventure/fantasy The Stronghold.
It follows the protagonist Victor, a schoolboy time-travelling a thousand years into the past, in a script based on a book by Volodymyr Rutkivskyi.
This year’s Ukraine in Focus festival will introduce these and other films to its audiences between April 26-29.
Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa triumphed at the Batumi International Art-House Film Fest (BIAFF) on Georgia’s Black Sea coast by taking the Grand Prix of the event for his feature A Gentle Creature.
Georgia’s capital Tbilisi is set to host a four-day program of film screenings and industry meetings in celebration of this year’s Film Festival Ukraine in Focus starting today.