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On September 25-30, Tbilisi will host the 4th edition of Taoba International Youth Film Festival, which this year will be held only for Georgian young audience due to the restrictions caused by COVID-19 pandemic.

4 feature and 19 short films will be screened in main competitions for 13-18 year olds attending festival.

The festival also gives 19-21 year old students interested in film art, the opportunity to attend masterclasses of Georgian film professionals within the project “Taoba Academy”.

The festival will open on September 25th with the Georgian premiere of the “Jim Button and the Wild 13”.

Partners and supporters of Taoba FF 2021 are: Tbilisi City Hall, Ministry of Culture, Sport and Youth Georgia, Georgian National Film Centre, Goethe Institute of Georgia, French Institute of Georgia, Embassy of Italy in Tbilisi, C. Bechstein Pianoforte AG, Amirani Cinema

About Taoba International Youth Film Festival:

Founded in 2018 by the Culture & Education Foundation and the National Youth and Children’s Palace, Taoba is the only international youth film festival in Georgia dedicated to young audience development and the promotion of film education. Taoba’s mission is to enable the development of young people’s critical, creative, and analytical skills and to stimulate dialogue on important social issues through film. The festival aims to stimulate social changes and to foster the talents of young people through masterclasses and lectures, as well as to support their participation in film festivals abroad.

During the annual Taoba festival, hundreds of selected teenagers (13-18 year olds) participate in the main program daily. The young audience is selected based on motivation letters, during the festival they act as jury members – watch films, engage in discussions, getting extra knowledge and vote for the best Short and Feature films. It is important to mention, that even main location of the festival is the capital of the country, about 25% of young participants are coming from other towns and rural areas of Georgia. Foreign participants are delegated by partner institutions/festivals. Each screening is followed by discussions during which young audiences freely express their ideas and opinions on every topic important to a democratic society.

During four years of its existence, Taoba FF became a platform for promoting film education and supporting young audience engagement. In 2020, despite pandemic challenges, Taoba had a successful edition: the main program was mostly in a physical form. Festival also established first Georgian platform for film education www.filmeducation.ge

Press release on Film New Europe 

September 25-30, 2020, Taoba International Youth Film Festival celebrated it’s 3rd anniversary.
Considering restrictions caused by COVID 19 pandemic, Taoba held only for Georgian participants of limited number.
Among hundreds of submissions, film programming team selected 20 Short and 4 feature films in international competitions.

Participants of Taoba revealed winners of festival in two categories:

International Feature Film Competition
Negative Numbers
Director and Scriptwriter – Uta Beria
Georgia, France, Italy, 2020, 110:00 min

International Short Film Competition
A Typical Name for a Poor Child
Director – Emanuele Aldrovandi
Italy, 2019, 15:00 min

On 25th of September 2020, Museum of Bolnisi (Georgian National Museum) hosted Taoba Academy. Students from age 19 to 22, had full tour through museum and attended lecture about movie making, directing and producing. Speakers of the event were:

• Uta Beria – film director
• Data Pirtskhalava – film director
• Nutsa Tsikaridze – playwright and producer.

Speakers discussed the making of Uta Beria’s new film “Negative Numbers”, which is participating in International Feature Film Competition of Taoba FF.

Taking into account the rapid increase of cases worldwide, festival team decided to postpone 3rd edition of Taoba International Youth Film Festival to September 2020.

Therefore, deadlines for the registration of festival participants and volunteers extended. Taoba unites hundreds of young people from many countries and their safety is our highest priority.

We thank all our supporters, international partners and filmmakers.

See you very soon in Tbilisi
Taoba FF team

2nd edition of Taoba International Youth Film Festival held in Tbilisi on April 11-15. About 300, 13-18 years old, young people from 6 countries (Georgia, Italy, Macedonia, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan) participated in main program of festival daily.

4 feature and 28 short films in international competitions has been screened followed by 8 hours of discussion sessions. In the framework of the main educational program lectures and masterclasses were conducted with a total duration of 31 hours.

About 50 students were selected for the pilot project “Taoba Academy” and 8 hours of masterclasses from film professionals were provided to them.

In partnership with the French Institute of Georgia, Goethe-Institut Georgien, and Fabrika 2 free screenings for the general public were organized.

Taoba had an honor to organize a screening of “Rezo” a film by famous Georgian film director Levan Gabriadze followed by Q&A with the director.

Within the “Young Georgian Talent” section, participants had Q&A session with Luca Chikovani, a Georgian singer and actor living in Italy. Luca played one of the leading roles in “Lazzaro Felice” a film by Alice Rohrwacher, that won best screenplay at Cannes 2018.

Entertaining program included a joint intellectual game with TV show BOOKS’SHELF, DJ set, concert of Tony Memmel and his band (with support of U.S Embassy Tbilisi), concert of Georgian music band “Ara”.