Levan Koguashvili‘s “Guria” will world premiere in Venice’s Spotlight section on Sept. 9. The black-and-white tragicomedy, set in the western Georgian Guria region, follows Zuriko, a 45-year-old widower and farmer as he struggles to find love, as well as a fair price on hazelnuts. It’s the director’s fourth feature, following “Street Days” (2010), winner of a Tiger Award at Rotterdam; “Blind Dates” (2013), which scooped the Special Jury Award at Abu Dhabi, and “Brighton 4th” (2021), which took prizes at Tribeca and Cottbus.
Variety spoke with Koguashvili in Venice about “Guria” ahead of the film’s premiere. This project is a seven-country co-production with global financing. Can you discuss how Guria came to interest so many parties in telling a Georgian story?
Koguashvili: Basically, the idea of bringing in so many parties came from financing. We had to look for many co-producers. In our case, you get a little bit of money from different places.
Of course, it’s harder to manage a production when so many people are involved, but on the other hand, it makes for a very international crew. You have a sound guy from Switzerland, an editor from Luxembourg… it’s fun. I was really grateful that people got interested in this crazy story about friendship and love in Guria and found support in different countries.
And Saudi Arabia came in at the very last moment. We were still raising money for some pickup shoots, and we brought the film to the Red Sea industry park and showed 20 minutes. We won a couple of awards there, and that’s how the Saudi co-producers came on board.
It was a really great help, at the very last moment. Can you talk about co-writing the film? What did that collaboration look like, and what did each of you bring to the story?
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