Filmmaker Rati Tsiteladze awarded Visions du Réel festival award for latest work-in-progress

Film director Rati Tsiteladze is in active development with his latest work, a documentary dealing with a difficult personal and societal subject that earned a pitching prize from theindustry platform of Switzerland's Visions du Réel festival this week.

The filmmaker, who in recent years was part of a Berlinale co-production section and held a Cannes Film Festival residency, was the recipient of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival Award at the online pitching session for his project entitled But Dear Lord Why?.

The award means the Georgian director will have accreditation at the Greek festival as well as access to AGORA, its industry section, in June. Film projects that featured in the VdR-Pitching section can be found here.

Continuing Tsiteladze's focus on interspersing social and personal subjects through the lens, the documentary follows a young woman who for a decade has struggled with an unfulfilled dream of becoming a mother.

The look at Dea, the protagonist of the film, is a view not only on her situation but also on the "world where a woman is considered incomplete until she becomes a mother", the director's summary for his work says.

Nino Varsimashvili, Tsiteladze's partner in film projects over the recent years, is again involved as the producer alongside Olga Slusareva, through ArtWay Film. The documentary is also known with the title White Nights.

Tsiteladze's honours include the Best Documentary Award of the Tampere Film Festival in 2018 for Prisoner of Society.