Ana Urushadze
Supporting Role
A retired Georgian film star, used to playing heroic leads, embarks on a cathartic odyssey after being offered a supporting role as an unpleasant elderly man.
SYNOPSIS
After a fifteen-year hiatus, the actor, a star of Georgian cinema, attends the casting call of a young female director, where for the first time in his life he is asked to play a supporting role, a bizarre and unsympathetic elderly character. He leaves the casting unconvinced, bordering on insulted, accustomed to playing leading parts and charming heroic protagonists. Later, he recalls the casting experience and mocks the ambitions of the young director, referring to the project as a pretentious and pathetic attempt to squeeze all the philosophy she had gathered throughout her little life into her first film. However, as the story unfolds, we observe him gradually succumbing to the offered part and becoming enchanted by the strange and the unknown, triggering something in him and starting an irreversible process of self-transformation. As the actor unconsciously begins getting into character, he, without realizing it, accepts the role he has been offered to play.
DIRECTOR/WRITER
Ana Urushadze
PRODUCERS
Davit Tsintsadze
Ivo Felt
Sophio Bendiashvili
Bacho Meburishvili
Zeynep Atakan
Andrey Epifanov
Eleonora Granata
Dato Bakhtadze
PRODUCTION COMPANIES
Zazafilms
Allfilm
Enkeny Films
Zeyno Film
Cinetrain
Melograno Films
COUNTRIES
Georgia
Estonia
Turkey
GENRE
Fiction
Ana Urushadze
ANA URUSHADZE was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, on September 11, 1990. She graduated from Shota Rustaveli Theatre and Film State University in 2013. She has written and directed several shorts, including ONE MAN LOVED ME (2012) and IDEAS (2010). Her first feature, SCARY MOTHER (2017), which she wrote and directed, won a number of international awards, including Best First Feature at Locarno Film Festival and the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Feature Film at the 23rd Sarajevo Film Festival. The film also won the Cineuropa Award at the Sarajevo Film Festival 2017. At the Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2017, SCARY MOTHER won Best Performance by an Actress (Nato Murvanidze) and Jury Grand Prize; at Gijón International Film Festival 2017, it was awarded for Best Cinematography (Konstantin Esadze) and Best Director; received a Special Mention at Mumbai Film Festival (International Competition) 2017; and at San Francisco International Film Festival 2018, Urushadze won the Golden Gate Award for New Director. SCARY MOTHER was Georgia’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
The entire plot of the film is an act of ego death, the crumbling of the false persona created throughout a lifetime. The disintegration of the ego means letting the past go, distancing oneself from everything and everyone one identifies with. In the protagonist's – the Actor's – case, it is his past glory, success, and public attention. We observe the Actor as, by accepting a supporting role as an unpleasant, elderly character, he goes through an inevitable self-transformation. This process involves people and events that assist him and eventually lead him back to the catalyst – the one whose birth triggered this process in the first place, years ago – his own son. I want the film to be perceived as something like a myth or a fairy tale, seemingly deprived of any typical elements of the genre, but still having a verve that, despite the film’s straightforward cause-and-effect rendition, adds a somewhat mystical hue to the protagonist’s adventure.
Davit Tsintsadze
Davit Tsintsadze, Tbilisi-Berlin based producer, graduated from the faculty of Business Administration at the International Black Sea University (Georgia). During 2012-2016 he was working in the Georgian Ministry of Finance. In 2017 he moved to Berlin and started with film production studies at Filmarche e.V. From 2018 until now he has produced numerous commercial projects, short films. He co-founded the Georgian film production company Zazafilms in 2019 with a longtime collaborator Ana Urushadze. Shortly after they participated in training programs and industry events with the project, such as APostLab Workshop and CineLink in 2020, where they won the CineLink Award.
Ivo Felt
IVO FELT, producer and sound designer, co-founded the production company Allfilm in 1995. Currently he is focusing more on producing but has created sound design for more than 50 feature and documentary films in the past. Ivo’s productions include Zaza Urushadze’s TANGERINES (2013) nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe as well as Klaus Härö´s THE FENCER (2015), also nominated for Golden Globe in 2016. He has been serving in several juries at international film festivals and teaching at Tallinn University’s Baltic Film and Media School and the Estonian Academy of Arts.
Production company profile
ZAZAFILMS is a Georgian startup production company founded by the director Ana Urushadze and producer Davit Tsintsadze in 2019. The company focuses to produce high-quality arthouse fiction and documentary projects, having strong interest in international co-productions. SUPPORTING ROLE by Ana Urushadze is the first feature film project of the company, which has been funded by Georgian Film Center, Estonian Film Institute, Creative Europe Media Program and Eurimages. Davit Tsintsadze, Tbilisi and Berlin based producer, is the managing director of the company.
ALLFILM is an Academy Award and Golden Globe nominated production house operating since 1995. The company was created as a collaborative environment where exciting and original ideas could be matched with highly professional management. With considerable experience in film development and production, Allfilm is a vibrant production company with several full-time producers on board. Our scope of activity varies from developing and producing quality features, documentaries and TV series. We also come onboard as a co-production partner and provide production services under the Film Estonia cash rebate scheme. Over the years Allfilm has produced more than 80 films, including 35 international co-productions. During the years we have had the honour of working with directors such as Christopher Nolan, Zaza Urushadze, Tanel Toom, Marius Holst, Yoon-Ki Lee, Klaus Harö and many more. The films produced by Allfilm have won numerous awards in international film festivals and distributed in more than 120 countries worldwide. The Managing Director of the company is Ivo Felt.
Where are we at?
TOTAL ESTIMATED BUDGET
870.335.00 €
NEEDED FOR COMPLETION
85.000.00 €
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