Inaugural Kutaisi Short Film Festival delayed to 2021 for coronavirus safety
Organisers of the latest festival see the event as an opportunity to give the western city of Kutaisi its spot on the cinema map. Photo via Kutaisi International Short Film Festival.
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The maiden edition of Kutaisi International Short Film Festival, the latest cinema event launched in Georgia to bring celebration of the media and art form to audiences beyond capital Tbilisi, has been delayed to next year with the resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic in mind.
Organisers announced on Wednesday the festival would not go ahead for the planned dates of November 3-7 due to the "worsening epidemiological situation in the country and throughout the world".
The rise of confirmed cases, virus hotspots and deaths both in Georgia and across the world with the fall flu season has meant the festival team feeling the need to make the decision to set May 3-7 as the new dates for the festival's first edition.
Works from between 2018-2020 are being accepted by festival team as submissions, with juries of the festival having four awards to hand out to eventual winners. These include Best Film and Most Outstanding Director prizes for the main programme, with the award for shorts and a special prize from a film critics jury.
The festival is founded with the aim of decentralising the scene of cinema festivals in Georgia, which is mostly concentrated around capital Tbilisi. Organisers see the event as an opportunity to see the western hub city of Kutaisi regain "cinematic position in the industry" with the festival.
A major selection of Georgian cinema, from 1920s early Soviet classics to releases over the last decade, will be a theme at the Doclisboa film festival starting this Friday, with Georgia also showcased as Invited Country of the event's industry section.
A visually narrated story of an abandoned village disappearing under natural phenomena will be screened at the New Chitose Airport International Animation Festival in Japan, with director Mariam Kapanadze's work picked for the international competition section.
Filmmakers from across the world are invited to submit their works for the first edition of the Kutaisi International Short Film Festival, a celebration of short-form cinema in Georgia's west that aims to claim a place on the international calendar.
Director Irine Jordania's 12 Karl Marx Street has been selected as a candidate for the 2020 Short Film Award of the European Film Academy by juries of the ongoing short film section of the Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, Estonia.
The first edition of the Kutaisi International Short Film Festival in Georgia's west will run in May with a programme involving 15 works in the main competition plus other sections.
French filmmaker Vincent Launay-Franceschini received the principal award of the Kutaisi International Short Film Festival for his O ma!, while Irine Jordania earned the best director prize for 12 K. Marx Street, as the first edition of the festival handed out its honours last week.