Oscar-nominated animation biopic of theatre director Gabriadze now on Netflix
The 62-minute animated documentary is "about a life suffused with magical thinking", the International Documentary Film Amsterdam said. Screenshot from trailer.
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An Academy Award-nominated animation about the celebrated Georgian theatre and film director, screenwriter and dramatist Rezo Gabriadze has arrived on Netflix to narrate the creative's experiences in post-World War II Georgia with viewers of the platform.
With screenplay and art by the popular theatre figure himself, Rezo conveys stories from the city of Kutaisi in the years after the war, as experienced by then-nine-year-old artist. The historical documentary is directed by Levan Gabriadze.
A summary from distributors Mirsand said the work questioned "ideas of deep humanity, kindness and heartiness during uneasy times" of the postwar period, through the eyes of the founder of the puppet theatre in Georgia.
A trailer for the animated work said it offered Gabriadze's recollections of how the future theatre director's "friendship with Lenin and Stalin" developed, how he "digested literature with rats", and "helped a mobster in Kutaisi", among other stories.
A summary from the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam said the feature was "[a]lternately solemn and light-hearted, tragic and surreal".
[T]he story covers a huge assortment of subjects: yes, there's the war, but there's also an incredible story about a love letter, and an argument about the location of a toilet" - IDFA
Screened at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards in Brisbane in 2018, the work won the award for Best Animated Feature, before its selection for submission for an Academy Award the following year.
Rezo can be found on Netflix with English and Russian subtitles.
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