27-10-2020

Georgia's GNFC Postpones Grant Competitions

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    TBILISI: The Georgian National Film Center (GNFC) is postponing competitions through the end of 2020 due to uncertainties created by the COVID-19 crisis.

    The GNFC previously published a list of competitions which were to be announced during the month of October 2020. Although the virus pandemic required some adjustments to the competition announcement dates, all competitions with the budget set for 2020 except for one were announced. As for the four productions expected to receive grants for 2021 (short animated film, full-length feature film, first full-length feature film and a full-length feature film of Georgian-foreign coproduction), their announcement has been postponed until the end of 2020.

    "We represent an organisation dependent on the state budget, and we have an obligation to spend the allocated funds. At this stage, we do not know how much our budget will be for next year and all this should be considered by the Georgian government. Consequently, we had to postpone the remaining full-length competitions until the end of the year. Unfortunately, the pandemic has caused the postponement of many projects, and in addition, the issue of our budget is currently unclear", Gaga Chkheidze, Head of the GNFC, told FNE.

    The Film distribution competition was also postponed, and the GNFC could not announce the competition due to the closure of cinemas. As an alternative, the GNFC added a Documentary Film Project Development Financing Competition 2020, announced on 24 July 2020.