Every September, when the city gets back to its quiet life, cinema lovers from Europe and Asia gather to exchange their views on modern cinema and filmmaking.

In the interview with CBW Zviad Eliziani, Manager of BIAFF, points out that this year the festival is more “seen” in the city: “This year Batumi International Art-house Film Festival got more budget which helped us to support the event in visual way and to promote it on several locations in Batumi. BIAFF’s opening event was held in Batumi Music Centre which is much better option than Batumi Summer Theatre as it cannot provide a possibility for high quality performances. The closing ceremony of the festival will also be held in Music Centre”, – he says.

The cinema festival also includes meetings and awards the special guests who have made big efforts in the development of cinematography. Among the owners of the special honor are Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Bela Tar, Lana Ghoghoberidze, Nastassja Kinski, Rezo Cheishvili and Otar Ioseliani. This year the BIAFF Seahorse already was given to Gia Kancheli on the opening ceremony. As Zviad Eliziani Comments the other owner of the special honor will be Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf: “Mr. Makhmalbaf is one of the biggest representatives of modern Iranian cinematography and I’m happy that  he had a very good and informative meeting with the audience. I’m also very glad that Mr. Gia Kancheli made a public meeting as his role in Georgian cinematography in musical way is undoubtedly immense. There are lots of public and closed masterclasses with filmmakers and other invited guests the number of which  grows year by year.”

Success of BIAFF Zviad Eliziani sees mostly in developing industrial platform: “Every movie festival plays the essential role as it establishes further connections and cooperations. Batumi has a real potential of becoming a meeting point for different cultures and planning partnerships. We also hope that, with the help of the government, we manage to add more spaces for movie screenings which will help us in establishing new competition sections and the festival will grow even more,” – Eliziani comments.

12th Batumi International Art-house Film Festival officially ended on September 24th and the closing ceremony took place in Batumi Music Centre.

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