Svaneti Film Festival Archives

Svaneti International Film Festival | Awards 2024

Redeem Me by Rechel Hananashvili took the Chalet Mestia Award for Best Project at Georgia’s Svaneti International Film Festival nestling amid vertiginous mountains in one of highest villages in Europe. The film takes place in an Israeli-Georgian household where a 12-year old girl is adjusting to domestic turmoil.

Tea Vatsadze’s Gravity won the Best Project by a Female Director Award. Gravity sees donkey farmers taking over in a post-Soviet society. A Special Mention went to Abustumani by Mariam Karkashadze

Founded and headed by local filmmaker Mariam Khachvani (Dede) in 2021, this year’s event paid tribute to two-time Palme d’Or winner Ruben Ostlund and showcased a comprehensive retrospective of his film archive. During the closing ceremony he also received the festival’s Honorary Goddess Dali Award and gave a masterclass on his filmmaking techniques in the UNESCO awarded village of Ushvilli that stands at 3000 metres in stunning scenery

In the Short Film Competition two additional awards went to Timur Chopliani for Best Film with Its Not Far From Here and Kim Toress from Costa Rica who won Best Director for The Moon Will Contain Us

An international jury of programmers and producers presided over the two competitions, selecting the various winners.

A programme of four digitally restored Georgian classics from the silent period was also shown during open-air late-night screenings.

Here is the full list of the winners:

Pitching Forum Competition Awards

Chalet Mestia Award for Best Project

Redeem Me – Rechel Hananashvili (Georgia)

Best Project by a Female Director

Gravity – Tea Vatsadze (Georgia)

Special Mention

Abastumani – Mariam Karkashadze (Georgia)

Short Film Competition Awards

Best Film

It’s Not Far From Here – Timur Chopliani (Georgia)

Best Director

Kim Toress – The Moon Will Contain Us (Costa Rica/USA)

Honorary Goddess Dali Award

Ruben Östlund

SVANETI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024

Uprising in Guria | Djanki Guriashi (1928/9) Svaneti International Film Festive 2024

Dir: Alexandre Tsutsunava | Georgia, Silent, Historical drama 190′

On the final night of the festival, on 21st July, we took to the deckchairs in Mestia’s main square to watch this dazzling snapshot of Georgian history.

According to sources, the 1920s was one of the most significant decades for Georgian cinema in terms of aesthetics and channelling the ideology of the era. Director Alexandre Tsutsunava (Qristine,1916, Who Is at Fault?/1925, Khanuma 1926, Two Hunters,1927) was one the first Georgian feature directors and studied at Moscow Art Theatre School before honing his filmmaking craft under Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko.

In A Rebellion in Guria Tsutsunava makes use of national motifs and artfully draws on his experience as a theatre and opera director to conjure up the seething sentiments of the Georgian ‘peasants’ who mounted a wide scale revolt against Russian colonialism in 1847.

Based on Egnate Ninoshvilli’s novel this three hour historical epic features spectacular battle set pieces and impassioned performances from A Mesniaev, K. Eristavi and I Korsunskaya chronicling the rebellion that took place in western Georgia during. @MeredithTaylor

Citizen Saint (2023) Svaneti Film Festival 2024

Dir: Tinatin Kajrishvili | Georgia, Drama 2023

Is hope always a good a thing, or is it just a concept there to serve our own selfish needs? This is the question Tinatin Kajrishvili explores in her latest feature.

In a remote Georgian mining town, a saint’s stone statue mounted on a crucifix presides over the surrounding countryside and serves as a fatherly figure to those who come in tribute and also ask for help and protection

Citizen Saint – screening at this year’s Svaneti International Film Festival – reflects on the way Christian symbols of all kinds provide a comforting focus to believers all over the world.

According to local folklore the saint was crucified before turning to stone three days later. But when the man on the cross mysteriously disappears during restoration work a silent stranger (George Babluani) sporting stigmata and seemingly possessing mystic powers appears in the village causing the locals to assume this is the reincarnation of the statue. Some even reflect on the many secrets they have shared with him.

Miracles soon start to happen: the stranger finds a path through the caved-in tunnel where one of the villagers, a modest man called Berdo, once lost his son in a mining accident. Up to now he has only communed with his son’s ghost but now he can connect with him. The mine becomes a place of pilgrimage with believers coming from near and far in search of hope and healing including Mari, a woman whose husband was injured in the same incident. But the focus is always on the pilgrims’ own needs and expectations rather than the saintly man himself.

The Carpathian mountains surrounding the Svaneti International Film Festival provide an evocative backcloth for viewing this intriguing parable, a third feature for Kajrishvili who crafts an imaginative story about our ability to use representational icons to our own ends. Agile camerawork by Bulgarian DoP Krum Rodriquez is one of the triumphs of this resonant feature capturing the widescreen splendour of the craggy peaks, valleys and caves in pristine monochrome with fabulous use of light and shadow. Tako Zhordania‘s score adds to this surreal ambiance, combining ancient instruments, including the two-stringed erhu, and an Orthodox choir. @MeredithTaylor

NOW SCREENING AT SVANETI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Amoki (1927) Svaneti Film Festival 2024

Konstantine “Kote” Marjanishvili, also known by his Russian name of Konstantin Aleksandrovich (1872 – 1933), was best known as the founder of Georgian modern theatre and is widely celebrated for his part in the development of pre and post-revolutionary stage productions which were known for their lavish style and prodigious output

Born into a well-to-do literary family in Kvareli, then part of Russian empire, he started life as an actor/director during the early years of the 20th century before joining a troupe in Moscow where he later made a name for himself as an accomplished follower of Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863-1938) and went on to direct six films of various genres during the 1920s including this silent drama Amoki in 1927.

Inspired by Stefan Zweig’s Indonesian-set short story Amok the director heads off on an avantgarde flight of fantasy in his silent feature debut, a murky morality tale translocated to India. It sees a drug-addled alcoholic doctor (played by Aleksandre Imedashvili) descend into a hallucinogenic opium trip after suffering a breakdown and fetching up in an Indian village where he exploits the locals and attempts to take advantage of a married woman who requests his services in performing an abortion which will end in tragedy for both of them.

Serving both as an ethnographic snapshot of rural life in India at the time and an imaginative social drama the stealthy pacing and a sinister soundtrack only adds to the tension of this opium infused sortie into the imagination of a corrupt medic taking advantage of the characters he meets along the way (Nato Vachnadvili is particularly expressive and suitably dressed in the fashionable style of the era). The scene involving a bicycle theft is accompanied by the rhythmic whir of the wheels while also providing a palpable metaphor for colonial oppression. DoP Sergei Zabozlayev experiments with a dazzling array of inventive cinematic techniques including double exposures, aerial shots and soviet montage. A brave experimental film even by today’s standards. @MeredithTaylor

SVANETI international film festival 15-21July 2024

https://youtu.be/-9svbnswPJA?feature=shared

Svaneti International Film Festival 2024

The fourth annual Svaneti International Film Festival runs for a week from 15 July 2024 in the UNESCO World Heritage site of Svaneti, a region nestling in Georgia’s Caucasus mountains.

SIFF is the brainchild of general director Teimuraz Chkhvimiani, and artistic director Mariam Khatchvani who rose to the international stage with her awarding-winning feature debut Dede.

The Festival showcases the latest world cinema short films across the genres providing an opportunity for talented directors, producers and writers from all over the world to share their work in an exciting international environment.

Described as ‘breathakingly wild and mysterious”, Svaneti is now accessed by Queen Tamar Airport in the nearby capital Mestia. Tamar reigned as Queen of Georgia (1184-1213) during its Golden Age when the country became the most powerful in the region. Svaneti’s emblem is the koshki (defensive stone tower), created to house villagers at times of invasion and local strife (until recently Svaneti was renowned for its murderous blood feuds). Around 175 koshkebi, most originally built between the 9th and 13th centuries, survive here today and provide a stunning contrast to Mestia’s ultra modern airport designed by the German firm J Mayer H Architects.

SVANETI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024 | SVANETI, GEORGIA 15-21 July 2024

Image copyright J. Mayer H. Architects

Force Majeure (2014) Svaneti Film Festival 2024

Dir: Ruben Östlund | Cast: Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Kristofer Hivju, Clara Wettergren, Vincent Wettergren | 120mins Sweden/Drama

The working title for Ruben Östlund”s avalanche drama was originally Tourist but FORCE MAJEURE injects a more sinister and bewildering feeling into this cold-hearted psychological thriller that follows in the wake of an ‘act of God’. Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke) is a family man on a skiing holiday with his wife and kids who puts his own safety before that of his vulnerable family when disaster strikes.

But luck saves the day (or fate, in his case) and once the threatening snow cloud has transformed into a harmless puff of ice, Tomas goes back to eat humble pie (or Baked Alaska?) having blown his marriage and betrayed his children. His ego gets in the way and he can’t admit his cowardice, even when good judgement prevails.

Ruben Östlund is a pastmaster of the moral drama. His previous film Play concerned a group of black immigrants who mugged some white kids while the disaffected adults looked on, afraid to report the crime lest being accused of racism. Here, Tomas puts his safety first, albeit in the heat of the moment. But this behaviour is not unusual in the scheme of things: Many men put their work or their own interests before those of their wives and families – it’s a natural human response to want to safeguard the ability to provide, after all. They often end up losing their marriages and sometimes their livelihoods as a result – Ostlund has cleverly transposed this situation into an exciting and tense tragedy reaping dramatic rewards – but the family survive. He shows how a wife can often get over cowardice or loss if they feel their husband’s remorse. Here, Tomas’s wife Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli), could perhaps forgive if only Tomas could admit his human failing, but his pride stands in the way. Tomas is caught between the avalanche of his male ego – and that is what rampantly ends up destroying all he holds dear.

Fredrik Wenzel and Fred Arne Wergeland capture the magnificent natural landscape, both beautiful and hostile – showing the mountains as a fabulous natural force of nature and a dangerous, untamed wilderness, much the same as ‘male’ at its core. In Force Majeure, the real terror starts after nature has calmed down. Kristofer Hivju puts in a brave attempt to stick up for his friend but this all feels disingenuous in the scheme of things. It’s an uncomfortable film that forces us to contemplate our own behaviour. The children (newcomers Clara and Vincent Wettergren) watch silently as the family implodes. No justification can wash away this avalanche of guilt, no matter how strong the sun shines in the aftermath. MT

A RETROSPECTIVE of Ruben Östlund’s film archive is NOW SCREENING at SVANETI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024