07/12/2015 - The movie by Turkish filmmaker Senem Tüzen took home the Golden Prometheus, while Zaza Khalvashi conquered the Georgian competition with Solomon

The 16^th edition of the Tbilisi International Film Festival, which kicked off on 30 November with a rich and varied programme, came to an end last night with a closing ceremony that crowned Motherland [+see also:
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film profile] with the Golden Prometheus for Best Film. 

A jury headed by British director Martha Fiennes, and comprising Georgian filmmaker Salome Alexi, Haifa Film Festival artistic director Pnina Blayer, former director of the San Francisco Film Festival, the Tribeca Film Festival, the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and the Cinémathèque Française Peter Scarlet, and Odessa Film Festival programme advisor Alik Shpilyuk, decided to bestow the award upon the Turkish film directed by Senem Tüzen, which was unveiled in the Critics’ Week at the latest Venice Film Festival. The film follows an urban, middle-class woman who comes to the village house of her late grandmother to recover from a divorce and live out her childhood dream of being a writer, but she must confront her conservative and increasingly unhinged mother, who turns up uninvited and refuses to leave. On the other hand, the jury decided to award the Silver Prometheus for Best Director to Jonas Carpignano for his work on the acclaimed LUX Prize nominee Mediterranea [+see also:
film review
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interview: Jonas Carpignano
film profile].

As for the Georgian Panorama – the competition dedicated to national films – a jury including film historian and critic Ulrich Gregor, festival organiser and coordinator Erika Gregor, and film journalist Hossein Eidizadeh handed out the Prometheus for Best Film to Solomon by Zaza Khalvashi, the story of an unknown, talented musician, who is trying to establish himself through his art in one of the provincial Black Sea cities of post-Soviet Georgia. The Prometheus for Best Documentary went to When the Earth Seems to Be Light… by Salome Machaidze, Tamuna Karumidze and David Meskhi, a poetic documentary about modern youth, portraying stories about kids, skaters, artists and musicians in post-Soviet Georgia. Lastly, the Prometheus for Best Short Film was awarded to Tornike Bziava’s Wake Man.

The ceremony also celebrated the contributions made to world cinema by Armenian director Harutyun Khachatryan (The Wind of Emptiness, Return to the Promised Land, Documentarist) and Georgian film director and politician Lana Ghoghoberidze (Day Is Longer Than Night), with one Honorary Prometheus going to each.