’Scary Mother’ to open cinema debate week during Berlinale fest

Ana Urushadze’s award-winning debut feature Scary Mother will open a week of debate on cinema during the Berlinale Film Festival next month.

The 2017 drama is one of five films selected for a discussion on "the most stimulating works” within Berlin Critics’ Week.

The annual event involves cinema critics and filmmakers in discussion of various aspects of the art form.

The first films of Berlin Critics' Week's 2018 selection are here. The event opens with Ana Urushadze's "Scary Mother", which premiered @FilmFestLocarno this summer, a family story between art and reality. @GNFC_ More titles here: https://t.co/FBPuG5uWBapic.twitter.com/osH0JXH2nX

— Woche der Kritik (@wochederkritik) January 15, 2018

How do we watch films? Which films are we longing for? What constitutes cinema?”, will be some of the questions reviewed by participants of the Week.

Scary Mother premiered at the 2017 Locarno International Film Festival and went on to claim awards at the Swiss event and the Sarajevo Film Festival.

It was also named among 10 Best Arthouse Films of the year by AnOther Magazine and picked as Georgia’s bid for the Best Foreign Language Film Award at the upcoming Academy Awards.

Actor Nata Murvanidze is cast as the principal protagonist of the drama. Photo: Scary Mother film Facebook page.

The feature centres around a Georgian housewife who finally takes up her dream of writing, years after initially shelving the idea in favour of taking care of household work.

As the protagonist of the story begins reading her first published book to family members, she realises her fears of negative reception from relatives are becoming a reality.

This year’s Berlin Critics’ Week will run from February 14-22, with the film program of discussions starting on February 15 at the city’s Hackesche Hoefe Kino.