Guria, a poor region in western Georgia, in the 1990s. The Gurians, for whom progress has not yet arrived after the collapse of the Soviet Union, struggle for their daily survival with great passion and inexhaustible resourcefulness. Zuriko, a 45-year-old hazelnut farmer, has debts but no wife. His best friend Gela keeps trying to set him up, but so far no woman has satisfied his mother-in-law's demands. So Zuriko decides to take matters into his own hands. His son Achi also has a woman problem. The teenager is hopelessly in love with Eka, but she also has his eye on Beso. While father and son are busy with their women's affairs, life in Guria goes on as usual and the inhabitants try to get by with little clever tricks, humour and singing.
"Guria is a region located in western Georgia between the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea. It’s a very poor part of Georgia. Despite of the poverty, Gurians believe that they are especially gifted compared to other Georgians. They often cite their sense of humour and their musical ability as proof. Poverty on its own is a very interesting and cinematic phenomenon. You can find a lot of stories there, especially if you, like me, love Italian neo-realism. However, simply poverty isn’t enough. At least not for me. For inspiration I usually need ‘something more’. This ‘something more’ has different names: lightness, lyricism, humour, absurd or sadness. And in Guria, despite the severe poverty, you have plenty of it. In fact, for me, Guria is the natural blend of impoverishment and lyricism, deprivation and self-irony humour, sadness and laughter. Guria is the natural land of tragic comedy, the genre I like the most. And that’s the main reason why I want to make this film", Levan Koguashvili told FNE.
The film is produced by Olena Yershova through Georgia’s Kino Iberica in coproduction with Pascal Traechslin through Cineworx Filmproduktion (Switzerland). The project was supported by the Georgian National Film Center (GNFC) in 2019 and also in 2020, the Georgian Chanting Foundation in 2018, the Hubert Bals Fund in 2019, the Zurich Film Fund and the Swiss National Film Fund in 2022.
The total budget is 1.2 m EUR.
Filming is scheduled to start in the spring of 2023. The distributors are Cineworx in Switzerland and Distribution Company in Georgia.
Production Information:
Producer:
Kino Iberica (Georgia)
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Coproducer :
Cineworx Filmproduction (Switzerland)
Credits:
Director: Levan Koguashvili
Screenwriters: Boris Frumin, Levan Koguashvili
