EXCLUSIVE: Loco Films has boarded sales on Georgian filmmaker Levan Koguashvili’s drama Guria ahead of its world premiere in the Spotlight section of the Venice Film Festival and unveiled a first trailer.
News of the acquisition follows hot on the heels of Georgia’s decision to submit the feature as its entry to the 99th Academy Awards.
Set in the director’s native western Georgia, the film follows Zuriko, a 45-year-old hazelnut farmer navigating the economic challenges, romantic adventures and the surreal realities of life in the post-Soviet village of Guria.
When Italian buyers offer Zuriko a miserly price for his hazelnut harvest, he refuses to sell and sets out in search of better buyers. Meanwhile, his best friend Gela attempts to find him a new wife, introducing him to a string of potential matches, none of whom win the approval of Zuriko’s formidable ex-mother-in-law.
“Guria is about ordinary people who live under harsh conditions yet manage to preserve their humanity,” Koguashvili said. “It is a natural cradle of tragicomedy, the genre I love most.”
Beyond being the film’s geographical setting, director Koguashvili describes western Georgia as “a state of mind,” adding he wanted to make a film about ordinary people without ideological or political agendas.
“Just pure living. Just pure cinema. Just pure Guria,” he said.
Koguashvili’s previous credits include Blind Dates and Brighton 4th, which premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival and won the World Cinema Dramatic Competition.
Laurent Daniélou, CEO of Loco Films, which previously handled sales on Brighton 4th, described the film as “a marvellous Georgian comedy that opens a window onto a fractured post-Soviet world with warmth, sensuality and wry humor.”
Guria is a Georgian, Swiss, Luxembourgish, Bulgarian, Turkish, Norwegian and Saudi Arabian co-production.
It is lead produced by Olena Yershova, Koguashvili and Boris Frumin for Kino Iberica, Pascal Traechslin for Cineworx Filmproduktion, Donato Rotunno for Tarantula Luxembourg and Stefan Kitanov for Art Fest, with further partners including TatoFilm, Maya Film, Staer with the support of the Red Sea Fund.
Guria was announced as Georgia’s 2027 Oscars submission on Thursday by the Georgian National Film Center. It was selected from five potential candidates which also included Ana Urushadze’s Supporting Role, Nino Basilia’s Phase, Giorgi Ovashvili’s The Moon Is My Father and Nikoloz Khomasuridze’s Share the Love.
