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.

TBILISI: Georgian director Nana Janelidze is starting preproduction on the Georgian/French drama Where is Liza Going (Georgian-Abkhazian diaries). The narrative of the film has the characteristics of a road film: road, speed, landscape, car, search for the meaning of life, transformation, regaining yourself, rebirth.

TBILISI: The Georgian National Film Center distributed 88,064 EUR / 273,000 GEL for the production of four short animation films to be directed by Teimuraz Sikharulidze, Tsotne Rusishvili, Archil Kukhianidze and Dato Kiknavelidze. The winners were chosen from among 12 projects competing for the grants.

TBILISI: Tekla Machavariani from Nushi Film has been selected to participate in the 2020 Emerging Producers programme for documentary film producers, which kicks off at the 23rd edition of the Ji.hlava IDFF, taking place 24-29 October 2019. FNE spoke with Tekla Machavariani about the issues facing documentary film producers.

TBILISI: Georgian film director Levan Tutberidze has started shooting his new feature film The Resting Samurai as a coproduction of Georgia and the Netherlands.

TBILISI: Georgian director Zaza Khalvashi will begin shooting his new feature film Rain on Two Sides in mid-October 2019. His latest Georgian/Lithuanian coproduction Namme, which had its international premiere at the Tokyo Film Festival in 2017, is considered by many Georgian film critics as a pearl of modern Georgian cinema. The cinematographer is Giorgi Shvelidze, whose work on Namme earned him the Spotlight Award in Los Angeles at the American Society of Cinematographers in 2019.

TBILISI: The Georgian National Film Center has distributed 120,000 EUR / 360,000 GEL for the production of seven documentaries chosen from among 35 projects.