‘Beginning’ Director Dea Kulumbegashvili Talks Being Inspired As An Outsider – Contenders International

Angelique Jackson CAA has signed filmmaker Déa Kulumbegashvili, whose film “Beginning” is Georgia’s submission for best international feature at the 2021 Oscars.“Beginning” marks Kulumbegashvili’s feature directorial debut and has made major waves along the film festival circuit since its debut last fall at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the film won the Fipresci Prize.

The most exciting filmmakers are those who meticulously curate the tone and craft of their work. Directing every episode of a television season, as “WandaVision” executive producer Matt Shakman recently did, enables an artist to have a level of control over their work that television rarely provides.

Deadline on Monday launched streaming sites for its first two Contenders awards-season events that took place over the weekend: Contenders International and Contenders Documentary.

In I’m No Longer Here (Ya no estoy aquí), filmmaker Fernando Frias puts the spotlight on Kolombia counterculture in the region of Northern Mexico. Following the story of 17-year-old Ulises (played by breakout Juan Daniel Garcia Treviño), the film, Mexico’s submission in the International Feature Oscar race, uses his journey to present a different kind of immigrant narrative.

Director and co-writer Edoardo Ponti brought along his mother for my conversation about his movie, Netflix’s The Life Ahead, as part of Deadline’s Contenders International awards-season event. That mother happens to be a true screen legend, Sophia Loren, who has been directed by her son (their third collaboration) in her first major leading role in a movie in several years.

“I wanted to do this project for a long time, I had this story in mind for years and years,” says director Filippo Meneghetti about Two of Us, France’s Oscar entry this year, adding that he also spent an additional five years writing the screenplay with his co-writer Malysone Bovorasmy.

Romanian director Alexander Nanau joined Deadline’s Contenders International awards-season event to talk about his searing documentary Collective, one of the year’s most acclaimed films as winner of the European Film Award for documentary. It is also Romania’s official entry to the International Feature Film Oscar race, as well as a strong contender in the Documentary Feature competition too.

Finnish author Tove Jansson is most known for creating the enduringly popular children’s characters the Moomins, which have spanned comics, books and TV series since she first came up with them in the 1940s. She is now the subject of a biopic, Tove, which is Finland’s submission for the International Feature Oscar this year.

Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time, Hungary’s contender this year for the International Feature Film Oscar, hinges on a moment around seven minutes into the movie.

Scary stories and urban legends are always fun and at times can haunt you for the rest of your life. For filmmaker Joko Anwar, it was a scary story that was the inspirational seed that would bloom into Impetigore, Indonesia’s official entry for the Oscar International Feature race.

This year’s International Oscar entry for Switzerland, My Little Sister, follows a woman who has largely given up on her ambition to be a playwright and returns to Berlin to look after her twin brother, a famous actor with a terminal illness. It is directed by long-term collaborators and co-directors Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond.

In La Llorona, writer-director Jayro Bustamante blends elements of folklore, magical realism and horror to engage audiences, while also bringing attention to the genocide of native Mayans in 1980s Guatemala.

Drawing attention to the colorful and challenging lives of the elderly, genre-bending The Mole Agent is a film that changed completely from initial concept to final product.

Never Gonna Snow Again co-directors and co-writers Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert’s professional collaboration is an unusual one — the pair are ex-husband and wife. But Szumowska says their enduring partnership shows “collaboration is possible.”

KilI It And Leave This Town is a deeply personal, unconventional and moving hand-drawn animation from artist-turned-animator Mariusz Wilczynski, who explores subjects including grief and childhood in his feature debut.

Colombia’s International Feature Oscar submission El ovido que seremos (English title: Memories of My Father) hails from Oscar-winning Spanish director Fernando Trueba and stars Spanish legend Javier Cámara. It’s based on the memoir by Héctor Abad Faciolince about his father who was a doctor, professor and an activist for social justice who was murdered in 1987 by Colombian paramilitaries.

Greek dramedy Apples was one of the buzz films of last year’s depleted festival circuit, debuting in Venice where it opened the festival’s Horizons section. It’s now Greece’s entry into this year’s International Feature Oscar race.

“I think this story should be told all the time, especially now,” director Vadim Perelman says of his historical drama Persian Lessons. The film, set during the Holocaust, chronicles how a young Belgian man avoids execution in a concentration camp by pretending he can speak Persian, teaching a made-up language to a camp prison officer.

Nate Bolotin from XYZ Films says he was simply “blown away” by Jallikattu, this year’s International Feature Oscar entry from India, when he first encountered the movie as it was being submitted to festivals in 2019. The company quickly moved to board the project as an executive producer and took its North American rights.