Z365" or "Festival all year round" is the new strategic point of the Festival in which converge investigation, accompaniment and development of new talents (Ikusmira Berriak, Nest); training and cinematic knowledge transfer (Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, Zinemaldia + Plus, Filmmakers' dialogue); and investigation, disclosure and cinematic thought (Z70 project, Thought and Discussion and Research and publications).
Born in Tbilisi (Georgia) in 1957, from 1975 to 1981 he studied at the Film and Theatre Institute in Tbilisi where he was taught by Eldar Shengelaya and Otar Iosseliani. In the eighties and nineties he worked in Georgia as director’s assistant with various filmmakers and in 1984 he directed his first short film, White Nights. For Georgian television he made Dakhatuli tsre (The Drawn Circle) in 1988, and the short films Stumrebi (Guests) in 1990, and Sakhli (Home) (TV movie) in 1992. The short film still interests him as can be seen from the fact that in 2002 he shot a new short film called Eine Erotische Geschichte (An erotic tale). In the late nineties he moved to Berlin, where he currently lives. He has directed three full-length films, Zghvardze (On the border), 1993, which won the Silver Leopard at the Locarno Festival and the Golden Eagle at the International Black Sea Nations Film Festival in 1993; Lost Killers, 2000, shown in the “Un certain regard” section at Cannes in 2000 and at Zabaltegi in the same year. Lost Killers took part in festivals like the East European Youth Cinema Festival in Cottbus (Germany), and at the Salonica Festival where it won the Award for best director and best actor. Schussangst, his latest film, won the Golden Shell at the San Sebastián Festival last year. Dito Tsintsadze is a versatile man who likes to act in films by his friends, such as Vremya nashego detstva, directed by Zurab Tutberidze in Georgia in 1987, or The Crossing, by Nora Hoppe, screened in the Official Section at the San Sebastián Festival in 1999. His spirit of enquiry has led him to compose the music for three of his films: Eine Erotische Geschichte, Lost Killers and Schussangst.