Press release from Lazaro Hernandez
Continuing its successful festival run, the short film Via Gori will screen at the upcoming St. Kilda Film Festival in Melbourne, running from Tuesday May 24 to Sunday May 29 2011.
This screening will mark the film’s 16th festival selection thus far, 8 in Australia and 8 overseas. Overseas it has screened in the UK (London), USA (Orlando), Cambodia (Kampot), Canada (Whistler), Finland (Tampere), Italy (Rome), and Puerto Rico (Rincon). It will also soon screen in Spain (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria).
Directed and written by George Barbakadze, produced by Scott Gustetter and Lazaro Hernandez and billed a ‘masterful work of cinema’, named the Best Short Film at the Whistler Film Festival in December 2010, Via Gori is proving a winner with festival juries at home and abroad.
At the Flickerfest International Film Festival held in Sydney in January 2011, Mr. Barbakadze won the award for Best Direction in an Australian Short Film with Via Gori.
In the film, Russian planes start bombing the Georgian town of Gori when a Russian woman has to travel inconspicuously on a minibus with Georgian evacuees. A single Russian word uttered by her or her young daughter could make them the enemy of everyone around. Will they pass unnoticed or will they be discovered?
Via Gori was filmed entirely in Georgia in 2009 – in and around the town of Gori. Post-production was done in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia.The film is in Russian and Georgian with English subtitles.