Films by Salome Jashi, Dea Kulumbegashvili among European Film Awards nominees
'Beginning' by Dea Kulumbegashvili and 'Taming the Garden' by Salome Jashi feature in two categories of European Film Awards nominations for 2021. Photos via Cannes Film Festival/majordocs.org.
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Filmmakers Salome Jashi and Dea Kulumbegashvili have been nominated for this year's European Film Awards for their award-winning works Taming the Garden and Beginning, with thousands of European Film Academy members to vote for selections ahead of the awards ceremony in Berlin next month.
Jashi's Sundance-screened Swiss-Georgian-German co-production - recipient of prizes including the Cinema du reel Young Jury Special Mention and Best Film and Audience Award at Mexico's UNAM film festival - has been picked in the European Documentary selection.
Highlighted alongside four other works, ranging from celebrated director Sergei Loznitsa's look at the history of the 1941 Babi Yar massacre near Kiyv to The Most Beautiful Boy in the World by Kristina Lindstrom and Kristian Petri, the documentary has been billed for the European award as "[a]n ode to the rivarly between men and nature".
The nominations for European Documentary 2021 are:
— European Film Awards (@EuroFilmAwards) November 9, 2021
BABI YAR. CONTEXT by Sergei Loznitsa
FLEE by Jonas Poher Rasmussen
MR BACHMANN AND HIS CLASS by Maria Speth by Salomé Jashi
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BOY IN THE WORLD by Kristina Lindström & Kristian Petri#europeanfilmawards pic.twitter.com/v6BhRA212s
Praised for "astonishing cinematic style" at Sundance Film Festival, where the director - recipient of awards from Jean Rouch and Nyon film festivals, among others - was celebrated for "shrewdly observant eye", Taming the Graden looks at residents of a seaside locality in Georgia and their reactions to the sudden development of century-old trees being uprooted from the surroundings.
Over in the European Discovery Prix Fipresci section, designated for debut feature works, Kulumbegashvili's 2020 drama is one of six selections. It joins the likes of The Whaler Boy by Philipp Yuryev and Playground by Laura Wandel in the nominees for the category.
In her work, Kulumbegashvili's lens is centred around experiences of Yana, a member of a local Jehovah's witness community in a provincial Georgian town, confronted with a predicament of hate from extremist locals and disinterested police.
The work, a Georgian-French co-production, earned its director the principal prize of the Trieste Film Festival earlier this year, with praise as a "debut film displaying a rare authorial confidence, as well as pure stylistic coherence".
The judges also lauded Ia Sukhitashvili as "the astonishing lead actress" of the feature and said the acting, visual and audio elements of the film "continually encourage viewers to question their opinions on this astounding and thrilling story". The recognition joins awards and nominations at international events ranging from San Sebastian and Toronto film festivals to Asia Pacific Screen Awards.
Nominations for this year's European Film Awards are still being announced, with the European Film Academy- and European Film Academy Productions-presented prize set to identify best films in 26 categories in Berlin.