TBILISI: Georgian director Tamta Gabrichidze is currently in preproduction with her first long documentary Mugamati. The filming is planned for the summer of 2020. Gabrichidze’s short documentary The Trader / Sovdagari was awarded at Sundance and HoT Docs, and became the first Georgian documentary distributed by Netflix worldwide.

TBILISI: Georgian writer/director Tamaz (Tazo) Narimanidze is completing postproduction on his debut feature Winter Depression, which was supported by the Georgian National Film Center.

TBILISI: Georgian writer/director Giorgi Mukhadze is currently in preproduction with his debut feature When You Are 17. Shooting is scheduled for August 2020.

TBILISI: Acclaimed Georgian director and writer Zaza Khalvashi died at 62 on 4 February 2020. His latest film Rain on Two Sides is currently in postproduction.

TBILISI: Georgian writer/director Data Pirtskhalava is currently in preproduction with his debut feature A Long Break. Pirtskhalava won the Best International Short Award at the Locarno International Film Festival with his first film Father / Mama in 2015.

TBILISI: Georgia had a great year with more awards at international festivals and more attention given to Georgian films. Georgian cinema days were held in Brussels, Rome, Boston, Poland and Jordan, and Georgia was a Focus Country at the 2019 Valladolid International Film Festival and the Manaki Brothers Film Festival.

TBILISI: Total admissions increased in Georgia by 1.34 percent from 1,298,404 in 2018 to 1,359,365 in 2019. Admissions to domestic films decreased from 55,495 in 2018 to 37,865 in 2019 as the number of domestic releases also decreased, from 12 in 2018 to nine in 2019.

TBILISI: Georgian director Rusudan Chkonia is starting preproduction on the Georgian/Swiss/Norwegian feature drama Venice. Rusudan Chkonia is an awarded Georgian director, who participated in the Berlinale Talent Campus and the Residence du Festival de Cannes and whose debut feature film Keep Smiling premiered in Venice.

TBILISI: Georgian director Giorgi Gogichaishvili is starting preproduction on the Georgian feature film Anatori: Village of the Dead, a love story set in a village suffering from the black plague.

TBILISI: The venerated Georgian film director Lana Gogoberidze is completing postproduction on the Georgian/French feature drama Golden Thread. Her 1978 film Some Interviews on Personal Matters (1978) is one of the most prominent films in the history of Georgian cinema, where the content and form of the film are uniquely matched.