Press release from Lazaro Hernandez
The short film Via Gori has just won two new major awards, this time in Australia and the USA. These prizes now bring to 4 the tally of jury-selected awards the film has won at home and abroad.
At the recent Margaret River Shorts Film Festival in Western Australia, Via Gori was awarded Best Film. The film was lauded for its creativeapproach to representing war and its effects on civilians caught under heavy bombing raids. At the Honolulu Film Awards in Hawaii Vi a Gori won the prize for Best Human Rights Film. The film, though dealing with the effects of armed conflict, offers hope and shows that humanity can shine through in the toughest of times.
Via Gori was directed and written by George Barbakadze, and produced by Scott Gustetter and Lazaro Hernandez. Filmed entirely in Georgia, the film’s post-production was done in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia.
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.
Via Gori was named the Best Short Film at the Whistler Film Festival in December 2010. The jury awarded the film “based on its precise storytelling, its economical yet evocative use of the frame, its effortless performances, and its powerful message of forgiveness in the face of human cruelty”. It also “declared Via Gori to be a masterful work of cinema.”
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?