Georgian shorts, features at Brussels' eastern European cinema fest
A still from Negative Numbers by Uta Beria. The feature is in selection of films by Georgian directors for the Brussels festival. Photo via BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts.
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A selection of some of the latest Georgian cinema is part of an upcoming screening programme at Brussels' BOZAR Centre of Fine Arts, where the third edition of the BRIDGES. East of West Film Days festival will run this month.
At the venue that has hosted the look at eastern European film scene since 2018, seven recent releases by directors from Georgia will be seen by viewers with a wider selection between January 22-26.
From the country's Academy Awards submission Shindisi to Dea Kulumbegashvili's "unforgettable" short Lethe, the selection will come as part of the event that explores "sometimes misunderstood and, to us, often unknown cinematographic territories" of the 'New East'.
[The festival is a] rare opportunity to discover the different facets of cinematographic creation in countries such as Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Republic of Moldova and Belarus.
A region with a distinctive artistic signature in terms of what it owes to a Soviet heritage – a heritage that the festival is also celebrating – and in the way it is laying claim to the right to emancipation" - festival team
'Lethe', a short directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili, has received critical acclaim at festivals over the recent years. Photo via BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts.
In the programme, Dmitry Mamuliya's Venice Film Festival-screened The Criminal Man will be the first entry from Georgia to be seen by cinephiles - joined by the filmmaker - at BOZAR. The feature shows its protagonist witness the murder of a famed athlete and become obsessed with the incident with time.
Lethe and two other shorts are in their own sub-programme for the festival, similarly to shorts from other post-Soviet states. Kulumbegashvili's work - praised as “an extraordinary film that in a manner is not only unforgettable but also adds a step forward in cinema" at the Thessaloniki Short Film Festival - will be joined by Data Phirtskalava's Father, Fatherland from George Sikharulidze and Animal by Amiran Dolidze.
Phirtskalava was awarded for his work at the 2015 Locarno Film Festival, where Animal from Dolidze - with a young, unemployed protagonist attempting to change his life for the better through illicit means - was shown last year. Sikharulidze saw his film screen at the coveted Sundance Film Festival in 2018.
The BOZAR programme will later present A Tunnel, an International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam-premiered feature by Nino Orjonikidze and Vano Arsenishvili. The Georgian-German co-production takes a look at a rapid transformation of a quiet village in Georgia into a transit location for a railway set to form a chain in China's global Belt and Road trade initiative.
There are promises of prosperity and progress, but in the dreamy atmosphere of the fairy-tale village, the coming of the express train feels more like a nightmare" - IDFA
The Georgian cinema representation in Brussels will conclude with screenings of Negative Numbers Uta Beria - which debuted in 2019 at the Arras and Rome film festivals - and Georgia's most recent Academy Award submission Shindisi, in which director Dito Tsintsadze told an episode of a selfless sacrifice by Georgian troops during the 2008 Russian-Georgian war. The latter work claimed the Warsaw Film Festival Grand Prix in October.
The full BOZAR festival programme can be accessed on the official website here.
Classic and new works by Georgian directors will be screened among films from eastern European states at Brussels' BOZAR Centre of Fine Arts, to reflect the cinematic legacy and recent renaissance of filmmaking in the region this month.
A film bringing a "dreamy atmosphere" of a remote Georgian village undergoing major change will have its world premiere at this year's International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.
The Criminal Man, the latest feature by Georgian director Dmitry Mamuliya, is among films selected to be screened at this year’s Venice Biennale, when the cinema section of major international artistic event opens next week.
A selection of some of the most notable Georgian films, from a Soviet classic to contemporary releases, will be screened at Brussels’ BOZAR Centre of Fine Arts in a new festival launched by the venue next week.
Georgian cinema will be in focus at the upcoming Trento Film Festival, the oldest international festival dedicated to mountains, adventure and exploration, as the event opens its doors in Italy's north this spring.
Locarno Film Festival prize-winning young director Davit Pirtskhalava is working on his debut feature A Long Break, with the work set to explore subjects of bullying at school, traumatic memory and revenge.
Two works by Georgian directors will be presented at the European Film Market for this year's Berlin International Film Festival, with Uta Beria's debut feature Negative Numbers and The Golden Thread by Georgian cinema's acclaimed director Lana Gogoberidze in screenings later this month.
A documentary project by Georgian director Keti Machavariani is one of eight work-in-progress films announced as part of this year's selection of ParisDOC, a French industry platform, in partnership with Georgia's CineDOC-Tbilisi International Documentary Film Festival.
Georgian cinema classics and a contemporary feature are screening in Strasbourg to mark the country's chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
The upcoming New York Film Festival will have Dea Kulumbegashvili's feature 'Beginning' in the Main Slate programme, in the same week the film has its world debut at the San Sebastian Film Festival.
Filmmakers Nino Orjonikidze and Vano Arsenishvili have been awarded the principal prize of the Montenegrin-based UnderhillFest documentary festival for their work A Tunnel, with the two directors appearing at the ceremony via video link on Wednesday.
Dea Kulumbegashvili has collected the FIPRESCI international film critics award at the Toronto International Film Festival for her feature debut Beginning, with the film praised for an "emotionally compelling debut".
The Europalia arts festival, a biennial multidisciplinary event highlighting artistic and cultural facets of select countries in its editions, will this year showcase Georgia through the country's tradition of polyphonic singing, remembrance of its traumatic historical events and the legacy of its avant-garde art scene in the first decades of the 20th century.