Otar Iosseliani

• Georgian director, born in 1934 in Tbilisi (Georgia).

  After studying music (piano and composition) in Georgia, then mathematics in Moscow, Otar Iosseliani started a film course, notably under Lev Kuleshov. Subject to Soviet censorship from his first film (Akvarel in 1958), he practised various trades – from metallurgy to fishing – and those experiences fed into his work. He moved to France in the early eighties and his films received the most prestigious awards of the time, such as the Jury Prize in Venice in 1984, for Favourites of the Moon or the Louis Delluc Prize for Farewell, Home Sweet Home in 1999. Highly imaginative, his work is that of a free spirit, using offbeat humour to denounce – through absurdity – the corruption and contradictions of the world. Music has always been an essential part of his cinema, greatly contributing to the poetry of his films.

• Falling Leaves (1966) - Once Upon a Time There Was a Singing Blackbird (1970) - Pastorale (1975) - Euskadi (1983) - Favorites of the Moon (1984) - And Then There Was Light (1989) - La Chasse aux papillons (1992) - Seule, Géorgie (1994) - Brigands-Chapter VII (1996) - Farewell, Home Sweet Home (1999) - Monday Morning (2002) - Gardens in Autumn (2006) - Chantrapas (2010) - Winter Song (2015)