Nino Basilia is a director and scriptwriter. She studied at the High School Of Scriptwriters and Filmmakers and at the Tbilisi Pedagogical Institute, Faculty of Philology, as well. She also has a degree in journalism by the Georgian State University. Among her many films ‘6 ½ Minutes’ was the winner of Moscow Film Festival. Her film ‘Anna’s Life’ was nominated for an Ingmar Bergman Award at the Göteborg International Film Festival (GIFF) in Sweden. The film was also selected alongside 300 others to be screened at the Beijing International Film Festival (China), Won Grand Prize at the International film festival of València Cinema Jove (Spain) and the Best Director award at the Arras Film Festival (France). In interview with IZNEWS, talking about his experiences in cinema and his film “Anna’s Life”
IZNEWS: Why did you choose to work in the cinema and what are your cinematographic references and what cinema means for you?
Nino Basilia: I think cinema can express the motions and the idea, thinks and characters of a person. I think it is most powerful art instrument. And before I had some touch with cinematography and acquired this profession, I was a journalist and philologist. I was the editor-in-chief of a magazine and simultaneously I used to write stories, novels and plays and published them. And, I guessed that if my works were added some visual aesthetics, my thoughts would have much more wide and comprehensive expression. I even had the physical need of it. This is the way I came to cinematography. I consider that cinema, if it appears in the hands of a professional, can have the strongest impact on a person. Today, cinema is everything for me. I can’t write either novels or some stories anymore. All my new ideas now exist only in the form of scripts waiting for their time to be completed.
IZNEWS: Are there any difficulties while you work in the cinema?
Nino Basilia: No, I do not have difficulties. Sometimes difficulties is even good for artist, because artist is trying to find another ways, thinking different way to achieve his major goal. And all this makes film and work very interesting.
IZNEWS: What was it that you wanted to report with this movie?
Nino Basilia: I only showed my pain in this movie. I showed a strong woman who along with other features has got her dignity. I reflected the difficulties which single lonely mothers usually have to overcome. I showed the bureaucratic system which can’t provide a support to socially non-protected people. I showed the emotions which become blunt and worn out during life in despite of the fact that you are young and you aspire for happiness. There are no metaphors in my film and due to this fact what I wanted to say I reflected in the form of reality and the spectator won’t have to think deeper to understand the details.
IZNEWS: The protagonist is a woman who fights as she can to get ahead. Is the female still more defenseless against society and the system?
Nino Basilia: Any system always makes defenseless any person, be it a woman or a man. Women don’t feel oppressed in our country but after the breakdown of the Soviet Union, becoming independent produced the economic problems. And, this mostly became the load for women. They had to support their families. It was just due to this reason that they started to leave their families and go to work abroad. They have left their own children here without care and started to take care of children of other people somewhere overseas. A system should always be replaced when it doesn’t work, when someone is oppressed, be it a woman or a man. And this is usually followed by revolutions. We have experienced too many revolutions and civil wars and still not everything is arranged.
For example, now, in our country it is necessary to change the drug policy as it is not flexible and human in the current political system. A number of young men become its victims. Usual, good people get into jail because of smoking marijuana and using some light drugs.
IZNEWS: As a woman, have you struggled to get your first project forward as a director?
Nino Basilia: I have passed such a life that I had to fight for everything. So, fighting for getting financing for shooting this movie was nothing in comparison with the struggles I have experienced before. Fighting for survival is more difficult than for getting a film budget. However, now I really have to struggle to get financing for my next movie. There is a great competition while the state funding is very poor. It is very difficult to make the members of the commission sure that I will shoot really a good film. And, among these members some of them even aren’t professionals. To this is added the fact that instead of increasing the film center budget the government decreases it. For example, last year the Ministry of Culture has cut off the National Film Center’s budget in the amount of half a million Dollars. The priorities are not set correctly in our country.
IZNEWS: Anna’s story addresses issues of an unquestionable depth: maternity alone, autistic son, great economic hardship, lack of social resources by the state … are we facing a credible portrayal of the situation in Georgia, your country? In this sense, what is the balance of the years since the exit from the Soviet orbit and the achievement of independence?
Nino Basilia: I even don’t want to recollect the periods of the Soviet System and the 90ies, which followed the period of the system breakdown in our country. Yes, there were all those problems that are shown in the film and there was even more. And, there were long queues for bread; time with no electricity and gas, and there were civil confrontations. But the main thing is that Georgia still achieved the independence that was so urgent for Georgian people. By nature we are proud and free nation, so, appearing under ruling of any system for us equals to death. And, the fact that we still managed to survive and maintain our uniqueness in this almost a century-aged period of colonization, was due to the set of features of our human nature. The main thing is our goal, and we can always overcome the difficulties.
IZNEWS: The protagonist of your movie shows tremendously dignified and feisty, absolutely willing to sacrifice, but not at any price. Are those the values you most want to highlight from that woman? How do you see and how does Georgian society treat women?
Nino Basilia: Most of all that I like in my hero is that she is a worthy person. Despite all the difficulties, she is not “sold”. And, in despite of the fact that it is a woman, she continues fighting to the end for her own and her son’s survival, and even many men may be jealous of her self-sacrifice and courageousness. Today in Georgia women have become very active. They are involved in politics and work on leading positions, and many women work in the sphere of arts. As if, during overcoming those difficulties they experienced in the 90ies, they’ve been tempered. For example, there were periods when men couldn’t get jobs and women had to support their families. Some people even left for abroad to earn money by working as caretakers and servants. Among them, most people were with higher education but there they didn’t refuse to do any kind of work.
“Anna’s Life” Participation in film festivals and awards.
1. Goteborg Int. Film Festival (Sweden) – Ingmar Bergman’s prize nomination. Main selection.
2. Beijing Int. Film Fest. Section – Forward Future. – In main competition.
3. Argentina. Buenos Aires Int. Film Fest. Construir Cine. – Merit Award.
4. Erevan Int. Film Fest. – Golden Apricot. – In Main competition.
5. Istanbul Int. Film Festival Crime and Punishment. – Special Jury prize.
6. Argentina. Int. Film Fest. – In Main competition.
7. Spain. Valencia. Int. Film Festival – Cinema Jove. – Grand Prix.
8. Russia. Sakhalin Int. Film Fest. – On the Edge – Awards: Best director, best Actress.
9. Germany. Cottbus Int. Film Fest. – in main competition.
10. Palma de Mallorca. Int. Film Fest. – Grand Prix.
11. France. Arras Int. Film Fest. – Best Director’s prize.
12. Cairo Int. Film Fest. – Fipresci Award.
13. Petersburg Int. Film Fest. – Nachalo. – in Main competition.
14. India. Bengaluru Int. Film Fest. Fipresci selection.
15. Austria. Vienna Film Fest. – ‘Let’s See’ – in main competition.
16. USA. Hollywood Int. Film Fest. – ‘SEE Festival’ (South Eastern Europe) – main competition.
IZNEWS | Zana Hama Ghareb
