CinéDOC-Tbilisi First Day
… for me, arriving early saturday morning to the Georgian capital to have a wonderful first day at the five year old festival led by Ileana Stanculescu and Artchil Khetagouri. ”Welcome home”, a Georgian filmmaker said to me, and right he is, I feel very much at home here among the many talented Georgian directors and with the Lithuanians, who are here as Lithuania is the Guest Country.
One of them, of course, is Audrius Stonys, who is experiencing a great festival success with his ”Woman and the Glacier”. Just back from HotDocs festival in Canada, the world traveller had a one hour conversation with me about the film and about ”The Baltic New Wave”, his next film where his task is to introduce the audience to what was and is the poetic cinema as it comes out/came out in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
I sat on the first row in the Amirani Cinema, full house for the film of Stonys and for the film that followed, Pawel Lozinski’s ”You Have No Idea How Much I Love You”, the magic chamber play by the Polish director, who took the audience behind the film, how was the casting, how many cameras, the research, the ”why” he wanted to make the film. Anna Dziapshipa, filmmaker, producer, photographer – and professional interpreter gave the long Q&A the rythm it needed. I was happy to be there, also because this was the preparation for the two hour masterclass with Lozinski at the upcoming DocsBarcelona.
Finally an outdoor screening of the Israeli ”Presenting Princess Shaw” by Ido Haar, a film I had heard about and thought ”ah, another of these ”American Dream came through” films”, and it was, but Samantha aka Princess Shaw is such a lively and charming character and the Israeli musician Kutiman, who makes fine art out of her youtube clips is such a sympathetic person, it is a warm film that has its magic moments.
