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).
The Georgian director, Déa Kulumbegashvili, presented her debut film Dasatskisi/ Beginning yesterday at the Festival. It provides an intimate portrait of how things start to fall apart for the wife of a Jehovah’s Witness community leader after their kingdom hall is attacked by extremists. According to the director, “the film places all the characters at a point of no-return; they go through the story swept along by their energy, but don’t stop to reflect about what they are doing. That’s why I thought it was important to force the audience to observe their actions without having the possibility of looking away when they were faced with uncomfortable situations, which is what we normally do in our everyday lives.” Asked about the highly aesthetic portrayal of violence in her film, she stressed that, “beauty and violence can only be understood together; you can’t have one without the other. They both form part of life, especially as far as the life of the main character is concerned. This doesn’t mean that I take pleasure in violence.”