Biography

Adilkhan YERZHANOV (1982, Kazakhstan) was born in the Jezkazgan region of Kazakhstan. He was educated as a filmmaker at the Kazakhstan National Academy of Arts. After this, he continued studying in New York thanks to a scholarship. He has made several shorts and features, among which The Owners (2014), which premiered at Cannes and was subsequently screened and received awards at many film festivals all over the world. The Plague at the Karatas Village had its world premiere at IFFR 2016. Yerzhanov won the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Achievement in Directing for his A Dark, Dark Man (2019).

Synopsis

Ex-con Kermek and his beloved Eva want to give up their crime-ridden lives in the steppes of Kazakhstan. He has a dream: to build a cinema in the mountains. Will Kermek's love for Alain Delon be strong enough to keep them away crime gangs' violent clutches?

Biography

Born in Shiraz, Iran in 1972, he began directing documentaries and short films while studying sociology. After his second film, Iron Island, opportunities for him to make and screen his work grew increasingly restricted. All seven of his feature films have fallen victim to the censor in Iran. In 2010, he was arrested on set while working alongside Jafar Panahi and sentenced to a year in prison. He has won numerous international awards for his work including several prizes in Un Certain Regard at Cannes. Since 2017, he has been officially barred from leaving Iran.

Synopsis

Every country that enforces the death penalty needs people to kill other people. Four men are put in front of an unthinkable but simple choice. Whatever they decide, it will directly or indirectly corrode themselves, their relationships, and their entire lives.

Biography

CARLO SIRONI is The Italian director studied photography and started in film as an assistant cinematographer and then assistant director. His first short film Sofia competed at Torino IFF and other festivals. He was also successful with his second short First Timer which was nominated for the competition at Venice IFF. Sole is his feature debut.

SYNOPSIS

Ermanno is an Italian low-life. Lena is a Polish girl, seven months pregnant. They are two strangers. Lena has come to Italy to sell her baby. Ermanno has to pretend to be the father so that he can entrust the newborn to his uncle Fabio in an adoption between relatives. But Sole, Lena’s daughter, is born pre-term so she must breastfeed her before she can go away with her money. Lena tries to deny the bond with her baby but Ermanno starts to take care of them as if he was the real father.

Biography

Nino Basilia - Director and screenwriter. She studied at the High School Of Scriptwriters and Filmmakers in Moscow (VGIK) and at the Tbilisi Pedagogical Institute, Faculty of Philology and journalism, at the school of Marketing and Management in Austria, as well.

In 2003-2004 based on her script was shot TV serials – Taste of Dust and Carousel. She directed several spectacles at theater – Sexual Revolution, Junkies, Jews etc. 

Since 2011, Nino worked at Public Broadcaster (TV) and shot around 30 doc films.  In 2016, via support of Georgian National Film Center she directed the film “Anna’s Life” which was screened at around 30 international film festivals and received 8 prizes. 

Synopsis

Loud thoughts of nine women on existential topics, on being human, on feelings/emotions. Each of them is fulfilling the act of meeting with themselves. Person #1 meets person #2, his  Alter-Ego. The question is, who am I? Where did I come from and where am I going? The world comes into the contact with them through music and lyrics. A path of self-perception begins, which they pass via with various emotional backgrounds and which is fully saturated with love.

Biography 

Andrea Štaka was born in Switzerland in 1973. She obtained her B.A. and her M.A. at the School of Visual Arts in Zurich. Her earlier films, such as Hotel Belgrad and Yugodivas, were shown to considerable acclaim at numerous festivals, including Sundance, Locarno and Munich, and won several awards. In 2005 she won the NYSCA Individual Artist Grant. Her first feature, Das Fraulein, won several festival awards, among them the Golden Leopard of the Locarno Film Festival and the Heart of Sarajevo at the 12th SFF. Mare is her third feature film.  

Synopsis

Mare has never flown, although she lives right next to the airport with her husband and their three teenage kids. She loves her family, cares for them, but sometimes almost feels like a stranger in her own home. Who are these people she lives with? Mare finds herself gazing at the planes overhead, longing for change and the unknown. When one day a younger man moves into the house next door, she puts her life to the test.

Biography

Hilal Baydarov was born in 1987 in Baku, Azerbaijan. During his high school years, he won the national championships of mathematics twice in 2004 and 2005. After a master in computer sciences, he left for Sarajevo to study film directing with Bela Tarr. His debut feature film HILLS WITHOUT NAMES was premiered at the Montreal Film Festival in 2018, the same year he won the Docu Talent award at Sarajevo Film Festival for his film BIRTHDAY. WHEN THE PERSIMMONS GREW is Baydarov's third feature film which will premiere in competition at the Visions du réel film festival in Nyon.  “In Between Dying” was premiered at Venice film festival 2020. 

Synopsis

In Between Dying is the love story of Davud, a young man trying to find his "real" family, who completes his life cycle in a single day.  When he does find Love, it's in the place he has always lived. But it is too late.

Biography

Born in 1988 in Moscow (Russia), he graduated from Moscow’s Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in 2011. His short and feature documentaries have garnered awards at Russian and international festivals. He holds the job of curator of short Russian films at the Moscow Film Festival. Corrections Class, inspired by the novel by psychologist Ekaterina Murashova, i s his feature debut.

Synopsis

Natalia, a nun from a remote Russian monastery, comes to Moscow 17 years after the terrorist attack in Dubrovka Theatre. She was sent there to organize a memorial evening for the victims of the attack that happened in October 2002. We soon learn that Natalia and her family were the witnesses of the attack. Almost forgotten now by the outside world the organizers and participants of the memorial evening or the Conference (as they were asked to call it officially) are made feel like a burden by the rest of the society. Following the chronology of the events as told by a few participants in the memorial evening we learn the dark details of Natalia’s personal story.

Biography 

Burhan Qurbani was born in 1980, his parents fled Afghanistan as victims of political persecution in 1979 and came to Germany. His father’s work in the US army meant he grew up in various German cities. After gaining experience at the Staatstheater Stuttgart and the Stadttheater Hannover, he began a degree in fiction directing at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg in 2002. His graduation film, Shahada, screened in the 2010 Berlinale Competition; his second feature, Wir sind jung. Wir sind stark., opened Rome Film Fest as well as Hof International Film Festival in 2014. Both films won several awards.

Synopsis

 As Francis, 30, the only survivor of an illegal crossing from Africa, awakes at a beach in Southern Europe, he swears an oath to God: From now on he wants to be a new, a better, a decent man. Soon after Francis finds himself in Berlin, where he realizes how hard it is to be righteous when you are an illegal refugee in Germany – without papers, without nation and without a work permit. When he receives an enticing offer from the charismatic German Reinhold, 31, to earn easy money, Francis initially resists the temptation, maintains his oath and stays away from Reinhold's shady dealings. But eventually he is sucked into Berlin's underworld and his life spirals out of control.

Biography

 Filmmaker dedicated to independent film and music videos. In 2004 he finished Andrzej Wajda’s Film School and has been creating documentary cinema since. His main subject is plain life, where he looks for humor and warmth. In a surrounding reality, regardless of it being far away of just outside his window, he aims to find the cinema in life. 

He conducts workshops for young cinematographers across Poland, and since 2007 is a part of his hometown’s Bydgoszcz Film Chronicles – a place for the young and creative people. He is a member of the board of experts in the Polish Film Institute since 2009 and has been the head of
a documentary course in Warsaw Film School since 2012. 

Synopsis

Chukotka, a place located on the edge of Siberia, where the cold winter lasts ten months. It's a severe land, where only the strongest are able to survive. One of the oldest Siberian tribes live there for centuries. Its tradition, culture and life in harmony with nature, were brutally destroyed by the Soviet regime. Since the USSR collapsed they have been trying to survive, missing the wisdom of their ancestors and hope for the future.

One of the last sources of life and tradition of Chukchi is whale fishing, whose fate is also threatened. For the Chukchi people, the whales are hope to survive the next winter. When the land of Lorino warms up from the sun, the hunting begins.

Biography

Giuliano Fratini was born on September 27th 1972 in Tivoli (Rome). Graduated at DAMS Roma Tre University with a thesis on Marlen Khutsiev's Infinitas. He won the Special Jury Prize at the Franz Kafka Italia with his first novel, Three Days (Cleup, 2014). Il Dono (Dar/The Gift) is his first movie.

Synopsis

After the release of Nostalghìa, Andrei Tarkovsky runs out his Soviet authorities permission to work abroad: he has to go back home. He understands from the messages of some friends and colleagues that his life in Russia would be even tougher than before. He then decides to break with Soviet authorities and leaves his friends that are hosting him in Rome and takes refuge in a secret location.

Biography

Hamza Ouni is a Tunisian filmmaker who began his career at the School of Arts and Cinema in Tunis. Hamza Ouni’s first full-length documentary, El Gort, received an international critique from the International Federation of Cinematographic Press (FIPRESCI) and was premiered at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, where he earned the prize for Best Filmmaker from the Arab World. He also received the Talent Dove Award at the Leipzig DOK festival in 2014 and the Bronze Tanit Award at Carthage in 2014.

Synopsis

Hailing from Mohammedia, Tunisia, the film documents twelve years in the life of Mehrez. A gifted dancer and actor, but also irresistibly addicted to gambling and horse races, he struggles on a daily basis with himself and the bewildering contradictions of his country. In his unstoppable quest for truthful emotions, Mehrez defies all rules.

Biography 

Daniele Tommaso is an Italian filmmaker and a documentary director. He founded Videocast which from the 80s produces films about culture, arts and fashion.

Synopsis

The Mediterranean Sea has always been a crossing point allowing people to find welcoming shores and a better future. During and after the World War II the Jews who survived the Shoah crossed it from Italy to get to the land they left 2000 years before, Palestine or, as they preferred to call it, Eretz Yisrael. In fact, Italy - responsible of Fascist Racial Laws during the war - later granted them protection and the possibility to leave from their coasts. Great Britain took position against the mass migration, fearing the Arabs in the Region would become a minority irritated by the circumstances. Ben-Gurion charged the Mossad LeAliyah Bet, the ancestor of the Israeli Secret Intelligence Service, with the operation of bringing to Eretz Yisrael the greatest number of Jews and lobbying for the recognition of the State of Israel among the International Community. Yehuda Arazi and Ada Sereni were leading the operation. The director met witnesses and experts as well as Yehuda Arazi and Ada Sereni’s heirs in order to retrace this political thriller and at the same to tell a touching story.

Biography 

Born in Konstanz, Germany in 1942. She worked as a painter and photographer in Paris from 1962–1968. She founded the Visuell film club in Konstanz in 1969, and led it until 1972; she also founded galeriepress, an art gallery and press. She has lived in Berlin since 1973. Alongside her film work she also produces operas and theatre and is present on the international art scene with photo exhibitions.

Her films have run at the most important international film festivals and tribute has been shown in many retrospective shows, for example in the New York Museum of Modern Art, in the Parisian Cinémathèque française, the Centre Pompidou, the Biennale di Venezia and in the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

Synopsis

Ulrike Ottinger in Paris Calligrammes, she explores the landscape of her memories of the city that she called home for 20 years and that helped shape her beginnings as a painter and filmmaker. Ottinger moved to Paris in her twenties and immersed herself in the cultural scene of the 1950s populated by heroes of the avant-garde and a new generation of artists and intellectuals. Meandering between bookshops, concert halls, theatres, cinemas, museums and cafés, Ottinger presents her personal pantheon, and at the same time maps a decisive era both in art – as Dada and Surrealism gave way to Situationism and Pop Art – and in politics where, in-between post-war hopes, the Algerian conflict and the student movements of 1968, there was much to discuss. Nonetheless, the film maintains its intimate stance throughout, assembling a rich and emotionally charged repertoire of film clips, news reports, photos and songs with the same meticulous affection that people used to stick newspaper clippings and photos in a diary so they could write around them

Biography

Professor Roman Shirman (25.10.1952) is one of the leading and most respected film directors in Ukraine. In 1975, he graduated with honors from the directing department of the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow. Author of more than 50 documentaries and feature films, television programs. Roman Shirman collaborated and continues to work with leading film studios and television channels (Kiev film studio of popular science films, National Cinema of Ukraine, Ukrainian film studio of documentaries, Interfilm, Cinema Studios, ICTV, INTER, Russia and others). Roman Shirman is a laureate of many national and international film festivals.

Along with work in films and on television, Roman Shirman successfully conducts teaching work.   From 1997 to the present, he teaches directing, heads the departments of directing and film and television art at the Institute of Cinema and Television of the Kiev National University of Culture and Arts. He is the author of six books on directing and screenwriting. Since 2009, Roman Shirman - Secretary of the Board of the National Union of Cinematographers of Ukraine.  

Synopsis

The film is not only about football. This story is about how, on the whim of the authorities, the famous coach Oleg Bazylevich was declared a pseudo-scientist and thrown out of work. He could not fight the lawless, anti-human communist system - all he had was his dignity and willpower.

This was a man who never asked for anything and did not complain about anything. Shortly before his death, Bazylevich was asked if he wanted something. Bedridden Bazyl, as the fans called him, replied: “I want... At least one more time to strike the ball…”

 Biography

Yasmin Fedda is a BAFTA-nominated documentary director. Her films have screened extensively at festivals including Sundance and Edinburgh International Film Festival, and have been broadcast on BBC and Al Jazeera. She has made three films in or on Syria, most recently 'Queens of Syria' (2014), which won the Black Pearl award at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and best female director at Carthage Film Festival. Yasmin has a PhD in Transdisciplinary Documentary Film, and is also a co-founder and programmer of Highlight Arts, an organisation that works with artists in times of conflict.

Synopsis

Bassel was a successful open source developer and hacker in Damascus. Paolo was a well-known priest based in Mar Musa monastery. Both men were active in the 2011 revolution, and witnesses to crimes before they were forcibly disappeared. ‘Ayouni’ follows these two high-profile figures of the Syrian revolution and asks how to rebuild a country when its civil society has been disappeared, killed and scattered across continents. Much like archaeologists, we are left to dig through the dirt in the hope of finding mere fragments of the truth.

Biography

Nikoloz Verdzadze was born in 1992 in Batumi. Since 2018, he is a film directing student at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Stage and Film/TVof Batumi Art University (Zaza Khalvashi Film Studio).

Synopsis

Irakli and Elena escape city life in a highland village. They want to restore a good relationship. Elena tries to create spiritual peace through yoga, while Irakli is addicted to alcohol, therefore they do not have a harmonious relationship, nevertheless they continue to live together.

Biography

Shakiba Khaleghi was born in Ispahan, Iran,  in 1986. She graduated with a degree in Cinema Direction from the Tehran University of Art and Architecture in 2011, and has since been director’s assistant on several feature films and theatre plays. She has also edited various shorts and features. Tirishko is her first very own short film.

Synopsis

A young woman lives alone in Tehran with her cat, Tirishko. Having learnt that her mother in Ispahan is ill, she decides to go and look after her. But as she cannot find anyone to take care of Tirishko, she sets off with the cat in tow. Her subsequent journey is not without incident.

Biography

Valentine Iconaru lives in Spain. He is author of several short fimls  - Hero (2013), Smartphone (2016), Spring 2020  etc. 

Synopsis

Valentine is a professional photographer who has lost the inspiration and desire to create while living alone in his home, confined by the Covid-19.

Biography

Pedro Peralta was born in Lisbon, where he lives and works. In 2012, he directed the short film MUPEPY MUNATIM (2012), selected and distinguished in several national and international festivals. In 2016 directed the short film ASCENSION, internationally premiered at the Critics' Week of the Cannes Film Festival and selected in more than seventy festivals (it was shown at BIAFF too). He is currently working on the development of his first feature film, KA.

Synopsis

Castuera, Spain, April 1939. During the night two Falangist Guards appear at the door of the house where Paz is taking refuge with her family. They request her presence at the police station. Paz immediately understands the fatality of this visit. With no chance to escape, she asks to breastfeed her newborn daughter one last time.

Synopsis

Paris, in a bourgeois apartment, Lumina, an ageless Vietnamese woman, dreams of another life.

Biography

Julien Feret is Producer for AMA Productions since 2009.   In 2019 was Co-producer of AND THEN WE DANCED directed by Levan Akin. In 2020 he made short film LUMINA 

Biography

Michał Piotrowski - born in 1990 in Katowice, Poland. Student of film directing at Krzysztof Kieślowski Film School in Katowice. Professional actor in Silesian Theatre in Katowice, leader of Gry i Ludzie Theatre, co-founder and leader of Czwarta Scena Theatre. Author of six theatre performances and two short films: „Lolo” and "Kattowitz". 

Synopsis

"Lolo" is a steampunk parable story about where the role exchange can lead. The title character is a cleaner who gets the chance to see how the world looks from a completely different perspective.

Biography

Seyed Payam Hosseini Born in Sanandaj, Iran.  Graduated in Architecture Faculty.  Graduate of Iranian Young Cinema Association (Sanandaj Office). Managing Director of Priya Film Haghighat (Filmmaking) Company

Synopsis

Border boy falls in love with a girl who lives across the border. She tries to reach out to the girl through the missing girl's kite on the other side of the border.

Biography

Levan Chkonia - Studies fiction film directing at Shota Rustaveli Theatre and Film University (under supervision of Dato Janelidze). Besides studying in university, he also have taken part in international project during which he worked with students from foreign countries and also from Batumi.  

Ignacy Ciszewsky - Studies cinematography at National University in Lodz

Synopsis

In Adjarian village Kirnati is a well organized kindergarten, which everyday hosts dozens of children, but one day huge snow came and teachers had nothing to do but wait for children all day.

Biography

Andrei Kutsila in 2007 earned his degree in International Journalism from the Belarusian State University and later the Belarusian Academy of Fine Arts in Minsk. Since then he has collaborated with various producers and TV stations as a freelance filmmaker and participated in many international education programmes (including IDFA Academy and Berlinale Talents). In 2018 he won the IDFA award in the Best Medium-Length Documentary Film category for "Summa". In 2019, he was awarded with the Silver Hobby-Horse for the best documentary film in the National Competition of the Krakow Film Festival. 

Synopsis

Old woman, being in the latter years of her life, opens the worn-out notebooks of her daughter in a remote village, and together we go on a journey to the unknown world of the person who is abandoned and forgotten.

Biography

Ergys Meta is known for the retrieval of neo-noir sub-genres in Albania. He studied in Bologna  per Cinematography Critic at the University of Bologna, Faculty of Lettere e Filosofia corso DAMS cinema mediologico. Ergys during the Academy years had a recognition and appreciation from the cinematic community in Tirana, where immediately after finishing the academy won three projects at the Albanian National Center of Cinematography.

Synopsis

An middle aged man is going in his hunting cabin in the middle of nowhere. After his wife loss, the only company is his hunting dog. The silence is disturbed by an escaped prisoner. The man is in dilemma: either to help or report the prisoner.

Synopsis

What do children do when the whole world is in isolation due to the coronavirus and they have to spend all their time at home? Do they go to online classes? Do they call friends? Improvise on the piano? Sunbath on the balcony? Do they easily adapt to their isolation? This film follows the lives of two small dreamers, stuck in isolation in Tbilisi during the spring of 2020, the spring of the coronavirus.

Biography

Anna Sarukhanova was born in Tbilisi, Georgia in 1988. She graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University and continued her education at the Directors’ Faculty of the Postgraduate School of Screenwriters and Film Directors (V. Khotinenko, V. Fenchenko and P. Finn workshop). In 2016 her short film «Till the end of the day» - was in official selection of Locarno Film Festival, (Pardi di Domani section). In 2018 Anna took part in Berlinale Talents.

Biography

Saba Kareli – since 2018, student of  film faculty of Shota Rustaveli State University of Theatre and Film. Studies film directing at film class of director Dato Janelidze and his assistant Vakho Jajanidze. Besides studying on university, participated in two international projects.

Mirian Oragvelidze – since 2017   studding in Batumi art teaching university’s faculty of theater and TV/Film art faculty. Film Class of Zaza Khalvashi. 

Synopsis

The film tells the story of a large family in a village, which is locked in one space due to snow, but despite being in the same building, they do not have close contact with each other. The main character is Nika, disabled persons. He is excluded from siblings and only has a relationship with the father.  

Biography

Born 1953, Katowice, Poland. Lech Majevski is a film and stage director, screenwriter and author, and is regarded as a leading filmmaker of our time. In 2006 the Museum of Modern Art in New York organized a major retrospective of his work; Majewski was the first Polish artist to be honored in this way. He began as a film director at the end of the 1970s. After martial law was declared in the early 80s, he left his native Poland and emigrated to England and subsequently to the USA. He became celebrated not only as a filmmaker but also as an important opera director. He received considerable critical acclaim for The Garden of Earthly Delights (2004), which took away the Grand Prix from the Roma Independent Film Festival.  Awarded at numerous international festivals. Lecturer at many universities and colleges around the world.

Synopsis

VALLEY OF THE GODS stars Malkovich as the reclusive richest man on earth and Hartnett as his would-be biographer, and intertwines their stories with an ancient Navajo legend as it explores how supernatural visions clash with reality, creating a fascinating, mysterious and idiosyncratic vision of America.

Biography

Born in Hilden, Germany in 1960, he has lived in Berlin since 1981. He studied German and drama at Freie Universität Berlin and then, from 1988 to 1994, film at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB). He directed his first feature film in 1995. Made in 2000, his film The State I Am In won Gold at the German Film Awards; he was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Director for Barbara in 2012. Undine marks his fifth film to be presented in the Berlinale Competition and, following Transit, his second collaboration with Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski.

Synopsis

Undine is a city guide in Berlin. But when the man she loves leaves her, the ancient myth catches up with her. Undine has to kill the man who betrays her and return to the water.

Biography 

Claude Lelouch, (born October 30, 1937, Paris), French director and screenwriter who was noted chiefly for his lush visual style. Taking a simpler, more straightforward approach to narrative than his colleagues in the “New Wave”, Lelouch has consistently found success at the box office despite frequent disparagement of his work by critics.

He achieved prominence in 1966 with his film Un Homme et une femme (A Man and a Woman), which shared the Grand Prize at the Cannes film festival and won two Academy Awards (for best foreign film and for best original story and screenplay). Lelouch’s later notable movies included the musical Les Uns et les autres (1981; Bolero) and Les Misérables (1995), an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel. The latter won a Golden Globe Award for best foreign film. Lelouch continued to direct into the early 21st century, and the dramedy Chacun sa vie (Everyone’s Life) was released in 2017.

Synopsis

They knew each other long ago: a man and a woman whose dazzling and unexpected romance captured in the now-iconic film, revolutionized our understanding of love. Today, the former race car driver seems lost in the pathways of his memory. In order to help him, his son seeks out the woman his father wasn’t able to cherish but whom he constantly revisits in his thoughts and dreams. Anne reunites with Jean-Louis and their story picks up where they left it…

Biography

Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1948, she graduated from the FAMU film school in Prague and began her career assisting Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda. She collaborated with Krzysztof Kieślowski on the screenplay of his Three Colors trilogy. Her film Gorączka screened in Competition at the Berlinale in 1981, the year in which she emigrated to Paris. Since then she has made over 30 films, winning awards including the Golden Globe and a Berlinale Silver Bear, and being nominated for a BAFTA and an Emmy. Her films In Darkness, Europa Europa and Angry Harvest were all nominated for an Academy Award.

Synopsis

Inspired by the true story of herbalist Jan Mikolasek, who dedicated his life to caring for the sick in spite of the immense obstacles he faced in his private and public life. Born at the turn of the 20th century, Mikolasek wins fame and fortune using unorthodox treatment methods to cure a wide range of diseases. Already a local institution in Czechoslovakia before World War II, the healer gains in reputation and wealth whether during the Nazi occupation or under the Communist rule. One after the other, every regime will want to use his skills and in return gives him protection. But how high shall be the costs to maintain this status as the tide turns?

Synopsis

Valerian Kotrikadze and his grandson Vako live in the rural village of Buknari, about 300 km away from the capital city. Valerian is a former soldier with a strong sense of organisation and discipline. The grandfather wants Vako to become an independent person and works tirelessly with him to help him learn a craft and to become a full member of a society.

Biography

Giorgi Mrevlishvili was born in 1983 in Tbilisi. In 2006, he graduated from Tbilisi State University with Master’s degree in International Journalism, then he earned his MFA in Film from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (USA) in 2013. Mrevlishvili has produced and directed numerous documentaries, short fiction and experimental films through 2004-2019. He is interested in practicing different modes of filmmaking and writing a book exploring experimental processes in documentary films. 

Biography

Dito Tsintsadze  was born in 1957 in Tbilisi, Georgia. Gradueted from attended the Tbilisi Theater and Film Institute in 1981. After assisting various directors, he made his first short film in 1984 and then began working for the private film production company "Shvidkatsa". His feature film ON THE BORDER (Zghvardze, 1993) won the Silver Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival in 1993. In the late nineties he moved to Berlin, where he currently lives. His first feature shot in Germany, LOST KILLERS, premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 2000, and won Grand Prize in Cottbus, Silver Alexander in Thessaloniki and Silver Prometheus in Tbilisi. His next feature film, SCHUSSANGST, won the Golden Seashell at the San Sebastián IFF in 2003. His latest film, INHALE-EXHALE, was awarded the Golden Goblet – Grand Jury Prize (Dito Tsintsadze) and Golden Goblet for Best Actress (Salome Demuria) at the Shanghai International Film Festival 2019.

Synopsis

A story of the film is based on real events that occurred during the Russian military intervention in Georgia in 2008. Shindisi is the name of the place where Russian occupation forces sieged Georgian military after the peace corridor was promised, this is when ordinary villagers took risks to save wounded Georgian soldiers.

Synopsis

Film tells the story of the father, Misha, who in the daily bustle of life lost the moment when his son becomes a man, and now he is the unknown person for him. Very late Misha realizes that his son's criminal life is only his fault, but it's already very late now – his son is dead. This ruins his life and personality, he can't find a place in life anymore. One day Misha finds painting of Nikala Pirosmani, this moment helps him come to terms with himself.

Biography

Lali Kiknavelidze  was born in 1969 in Tbilisi. She graduated from the Shota Rustaveli Georgian State University of Theatre and Film, film directing department in 2003, and from theTbilisi State University, faculty of philology and scriptwriting in 1991.

Biography

Misha Mareskin was born in Nizhy Novgorod, Russia. In 2003, he graduated from the Nizhny Novgorod Theater School specializing in Theatrical Drama Acting. In 2008, he graduated from the St. Petersburg State Film and Television University, specializing as a director of drama film. In 2011, he completed a graduate degree in the St. Petersburg State Film and Television University in Art Criticism

Synopsis

In the luxuriously apportioned St Petersburg apartment of Gaga, a former drug lord, four strangers meet. The man of the house is running late, and there is nothing left for the four to do but sit and talk. One has come to ask Gaga for money, another for a weapon, the third for blackmail, and the fourth to kill the third. One word leads to another and what first starts out as a harmless conversation between the waiting strangers becomes a series of taunts and insults at the expense of the weakest of them. This escalates into what threatens to be a bloody massacre and then… mystical encounters with the Inevitable

Synopsis

The main character of the film, 80 year old Elene is a writer. She lives together with her family and is stuck between four walls because of her health conditions. Her tranquility cracks  after her parent-in-law-Miranda moves to their house. Miranda is a former soviet high rank system employee who suffers from Alzheimer and who banned Elene’s book once.

BIography

Lana Ghoghoberidze  was born in Tbilisi in 1928. She is a Georgian film director, translator, writer and diplomat. Lana graduated from Tbilisi State University, Faculty of Philology, in 1950. In 1958- faculty of film directing at The Union Institute of Cinematography (VGIK). From 1958 she worked as a film director at a film studio “Georgian Film”.  Between 1983-1988 she supervised film directing workshop at the Tbilisi State University of Theatre and Film. Her films were screened at several film festivals, including Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Tokio, Sanremo and Geneva. In the years 1999-2004 Lana Ghoghoberidze was an Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Council of Europe. She is the author of a number of books, has published few collections of poetry translation.