Filmmaker Zaza Khalvashi’s Namme will be Georgia’s bid for the next Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film, after a jury team in Tbilisi announced the feature as winner of a national contest.
The Tokyo International Film Festival-premiered work will be submitted for the upcoming edition of the Oscars after it was picked among six competing entrants.
The drama feature follows Namme, a girl guardian of a healing spring in a mountainous Georgian village, entrusted with overseeing the waters by her father.
By taking up the task Namme continues the family task, while a hydro power station constructed nearby heralds environmental changes for the area, Agenda.ge reported.
An unexpected development sees the spring water disappear one day, with Namme’s father remembering an old custom that says it will only return if sacrifice is made for the cause.
A roster of Georgian actors is cast in Khalvashi’s screenplay in the Georgian-Lithuanian co-production, which was also screened at the Tbilisi International Film Festival last year.
The judges selected the drama feature from a shortlist that also included Horizon by Tinatin Kajrishvili, Khibula by George Ovashvili, Dede by Mariam Khatchvani as well as Nikoloz Khomasuridze’s Ekvtime: Man of God and Giorgi Megrelishvili’s Hamlet.
