Ketevan Vashagashvili: 9-Month Contract

I have several times on this site praised the film of Ketevan Vashagashvili, that I know – also as a project – for many years due to the CinéDoc Mentoring Program in Georgia. Ketevan came from journalism into documentary film making and she represents a wonderful example of how the two approaches can benefit from each other. The film is in the Documentary Competition in Sarajevo FF.

I quote from an interview – anonymous – from the Daily 8 of the Sarajevo FF. To be recommended:

“My Foremost Concern Was To Avoid Portraying Zhana As a Mere Victim of Her Circumstances…”

Indeed she avoids that. The main narrative point in the film is the relationship between mother and daughter. That was the motivation for the jury at CPH:Doxto award the film:

“The winner in the Human Rights Competition is a film that portrays the relationship between a mother and her daughter with a radical intimacy and an outstanding tenderness. Through its visual poetry the film balances delicately between the harshness of their situation and the humanity of Zhana and her intense love for her daughter.”

And another quote from the interview of Daily 8 of the Sarajevo FF:

The dialogue you mentioned between Zhana and Elene holds great significance for me. When I first filmed Zhana and Elene on the streets, the film aired on TV, prompting a social agency to seek Zhana to understand her situation. By the time we already located her, she was already in a rented apartment, thanks to the film, but they began questioning her ability to support Elene. Zhana requested that I accompany her to explain to them that she was a good mother and would never allow Elene to live in an orphanage. The thought of Elene in an orphanage was a nightmare for her. I stood by Zhana, of course. During Zhana’s surrogate pregnancies, traumatized and shocked, I often questioned whether I had acted correctly or if the social care system could have done more for Elene, potentially preventing Zhana from enduring the toll on her body. Yet in that moment, witnessing Elene stand so firmly for herself, I realized that she would never possess such strength without Zhana’s unwavering love and the opportunities she provided for her education and independence.

Photo of the director taken from the Daily 8.

Georgia, 2024, 84 mins.

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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