Filmkunstfest festival to showcase Georgian cinema, artists to German audience
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A host of films by Georgian filmmakers, from 1920s classics to most recent international prize-winners, will mark the focus on the country at the Filmkunstfest festival in the city of Schwerin in Germany’s north starting today.
For six days, over a dozen titles from Georgian directors in feature and short formats will be screened at the 28th edition of the event.
From Scary Mother, the most decorated Georgian film of the past year, to award-winning animation Pocket Man to Soviet-era silent work My Grandmother, the program for Focus Georgia will bring spotlight to the country.
A stand with posters for the Filmkunstfest program, including its Georgian showcase, in Schwerin:
It will mark an overall highlight of Georgian culture marked in Germany within this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, where Georgia will be hosted as the official Guest of Honour in October.
[O]ur goal is to give at least a small impression of the richness of Georgian culture to a German audience, which is not very familiar with it.
We want to spark curiosity and interest in Georgian culture, in its arts, its eventful history and every day culture”, festival director Volker Kufahl said in preview of the event.
Along with the program of cinema works, this focus will be marked with music performances by the Young Georgian Lolitaz band and acclaimed Berlin-based Georgian pianist Dudana Mazmanishvili.
Mazmanishvili’s appearance at the festival will come at the screening of Kote Mikaberidze’s silent avant-garde work My Grandmother. The pianist will entertain viewers with a live score for the film.
A photograph of children in Georgian countryside by Wolfgang Korall. Photo: the artist/filmland-mv.de.
Author Nino Kharatishvili, celebrated in Germany with the Bertolt Brecht Prize for Literature for her writing including the novel The Eighth Life (for Brilka), will read her work for visitors of Filmkunstfest.
A visual display will also present Georgia to interested visitors, with images of people and landscapes in the country by photographer Wolfgang Korall.
The artist, who has visited Georgia since the late 1970s, will present photographs from a recently published book The Soul Of Georgia at the Schwerin event.
Founded by cinema professionals in 1990, the Filmkunstfest is promoted as one of the largest film festivals in Germany’s east, with a particular focus on productions from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
A selection of latest and classic Georgian cinema, meetings with award-winning directors and actors from the country, and exhibitions with hospitality are all in the upcoming London Georgian Film Festival opening next month in the city.
Georgia has been officially handed the status of the Guest of Honour of the Frankfurt Book Fair on the final day of the major international book event, as the country begins gearing up to bear the title at next year's fair.
A Tbilisi exhibition starting later today will mark the legacy of a Soviet Georgian filmmaker whose works earned him acclaim of cinema enthusiasts as well as censorship of the Soviet regime.
If you find yourself in Berlin next month, you can find some of the most acclaimed Georgian films dating from the 1920s to the latest works screened at the capital city’s Arsenal Cinema.