Screenwriter and producer Nino Varsimashvili, director and producer Rati Tsiteladze and director Anna Sarukhanova are among 250 promising filmmakers from 81 countries.

Every year, Berlinale selects talents in the 5th to 10th year of their careers who come with professional expertise and festival experience under their belts. Criteria for the selection are the filmmaker’s’ artistic achievements and the local impact and relevance of their work’s content in their respective countries of origin. In the words of the Berlinale team: „What unites them? That you'll want to keep an eye on 'em!“


Talents at the Berlinale Talents summit in 2017. (Photograph: David Ausserhofer)

The Georgian filmmakers have attracted the Berlinale team’s attention with recent successes. Anna Sarukhanova previously worked as a journalist and started her film career in shooting music videos and fashion films. Two of her short films recently made it into the official selections of renowned European film festivals: Last year, “Till the end of the day” was selected for “Pardi di Domani” by Locarno Film Festival and this year, “The perfect order” took part in the Short Film Competition of Sarajevo Film Festival.


Director Anna Sarukhanova was born in Tbilisi.

Nino Varsimashvili has produced a row of very successful short films, among them “Deda” or “Little Things”. Her films have won numerous international awards and were present at around 3000 film festivals. Nino Varsimashvili and Rati Tsiteladze will both be working on the feature film project “The Empty House” in the Berlinale Project Labs. The project is short-listed for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and has won several prizes.


Nino Varsimashvili is a screenwriter and producer at the Georgian studio ArtWay Film production.

Rati Tsiteladze founded the studio Artway Film production and has directed several award-winning short films. His feature documentary project “Shadows in the Silence”, produced by Nino Varsimashvili, has been selected among six projects at Doc Corner – 70th Festival de Cannes.


Rati Tsiteladze won the title of World Champion in martial arts before becoming a filmmaker.

All the talents will take part in this year’s Berlinale Talents summit during the Berlinale Film Festival next month. The networking event includes workshops, masterclasses, panel discussions and pitching sessions from February 17-22.

„For six days, they will have the opportunity to engage with one another, experts and the public, to critically question their own artistic standpoint and to further develop their film projects“, the Berlinale team announced.

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