European Film Academy-award-winning director Nino Kirtadze was born in Tbilisi, Georgia. She is one of the few Georgian directors who made her cinematic debut in France and quickly established herself as one of the best documentary directors worldwide. She focuses on controversial subjects, placing the accent on human drama and creating deep insightful human portraits. Her films have won international acclaim and numerous prestigious prizes at festivals worldwide, including Best Director Prize at Sundance for ‘Durakovo – Village of Fools’, the European Film Academy award for ‘Pipeline Next Door’, Germany’s top documentary award, the Adolf Grimme Gold, for ‘Chechen Lullaby’ and the Cinema du Réel award for ‘Tell My Friends That I’m Dead’. Her films have been presented at top world festivals, including Cannes, Toronto, Sundance, IDFA and RIDM. Nino Kirtadze is also a scriptwriter and actress. During the troubled years in the Caucasus in 1990s she also worked as a war correspondent for the AFP and for the AP, covering the war in Chechnya and other armed conflicts in the region. Since 1997, Nino Kirtadze has been living in France and working with Peter Brook, Ben Gazzara, Vittorio Gassman, Jean-Pierre Ameris and Claude Goretta. She works on a regular basis with different national and international organisations and film schools as a consultant, jury member, lecturer and tutor. Her film ‘Don’t breathe’ which was premiered in Toronto IFF 2014 extends the borders of documentary and places this dark comedy between fiction and documentary. Her next title 'I Invite You to My Execution' is film focused on the incredible story of the Nobel Prize winning novel ‘Doctor Zhivago’ and its transformation into a cold war missile. She underlines in her film the tragic story of the novel’s author, Boris Pasternak, as he desperately tries to publish the forbidden book and is prepared to give his life for it.
France