E6 • Seek Your Truth • GEORGE SIKHARULIDZE, dir. of 'Panopticon' at the Karlovy Vary Int. Film Festival

Filmmaker George Sikharulidze joins Marcus from Tbilisi, Georgia to discuss his feature film debut 'Panopticon', which is World Premiering at the prestigious 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on June 30th at The Grand Hall, and competing for the festival's top prize: the Crystal Globe. 

A variety of topics include the influence of Francois Truffaut's 'The 400 Blows', the importance of honesty in filmmaking, the concept of Panopticism, and the value of making the films you regret. Other topics include the experience of watching one's own film, the challenges of making a feature film compared to shorts, the value of film labs and festivals, and the difficulties of the Georgian Film Center.

George emphasizes the importance of serving the story and removing oneself as a director.

Short Ends

• The concept of panopticism and its influence on filmmaking
• The impact of Truffaut's '400 Blows' on the director's own work
• The value of developing a project through film school
• The importance of structure and honesty in filmmaking
• The excitement and anxiety of premiering a film at a festival 
• The experience of watching one's own film can vary, but the goal is to reach a point where the filmmaker can enjoy it without being overly concerned with others' opinions.
• Making a feature film presents different challenges compared to making shorts, such as carrying the entire story in one's head and shooting out of order.
• Film labs and festivals can provide valuable opportunities for filmmakers to showcase their work, meet industry professionals, and gain recognition.
• A director's job is to serve the story and remove themselves from the film, allowing the story to take center stage.
• The filmmaker has future projects in development and is motivated to continue making films.
• Honesty with oneself is crucial in the filmmaking process, avoiding distractions and staying true to the vision.

Like, subscribe and follow us on our socials @pastpresentfeature

Chapters

• 0:01 Past Present Feature, Hosted by Marcus Mizelle
• 0:47 Introducing Filmmaker George Sikharulidze
• 1:49 'Panopticon' - Part 1
• 5:46 The Filmmaker's Journey into Filmmaking
• 7:19 Influenced by Francois Truffaut's 'The 400 Blows'
• 10:19 Coming of Age Stories
• 14:02 Father Figures in Film
• 15:39 Religion in Film
• 18:00 The Value of Honesty in Filmmaking
• 20:36 Lessons From Film School
• 24:57 Resisting Formulaic Story Structure
• 28:36 Filmmaking Regrets
• 31:26 Panopticon Premieres at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
• 32:23 The Challenges and Rewards of Filmmaking
• 36:56 Directing Style: Serving the Story
• 41:16 Shorts vs Features: Different Challenges
• 46:11 The Development Process of Panopticon
• 51:00 The Honor of Being Accepted into Karlovy Vary
• 55:13 The Challenges of Georgian Film Center
• 56:46 Future Projects and the Importance of Honesty

Transcript

MM (00:48)
I'm joined by George Sikharouliadze from Tbilisi, Georgia. His feature film debut, 'Panopticon', world premieres at the prestigious Karly Vary International Film Festival on June 30th at the Grand Hall. That's a 1 ,131 seat theater, an acceptable place to premiere a movie...

The film is in competition for the festival's top prize, the Crystal Globe.

We cover various topics, including the concept of panopticism, the influence of Truffaut's 400, the importance of honesty in filmmaking, and the value of making films with regrets. also cover the challenges and emotions of screening films for others the value of developing a project through film labs.

Many thanks to George for taking the time as it was 1 a on his side of the planet when we began.

Marcus Mizelle (01:31)
literally on the other side of the

just crazy. It's just the connectivity we have these days. it's insane.

meet people that I never knew existed that are making great stuff, man, such as your stuff, such as your film and films. I watched, Panopticon, which I looked up and I wasn't familiar with the word before,

Yeah. Well, it's a prison structure from the 18th century, I believe, made by Bentham, who was this kind of architect and thinker. And he decided that it was a better structure for disciplining and surveilling inmates. have a circular structure.

with a surveillance tower in the person up at the tower can see 360 at all the tricky thing is that even if there's no one in the tower, the prisoners have no way of knowing. And so or not you place someone who's actually observing there or not, it shapes the behavior of the prisoners 24 -7.

And then Michel Foucault, the French philosopher, thinker takes this idea and starts to talk about various different oppressive structures in our expends it into this idea of panopticism, as he calls it. of the most famous phrases in his book, Discipline and Punish in the chapter on panopticism.

is visibility is a trap. I took this idea and I thought that at least when I was starting to work on the script, it applied to my character as a character, as a product of society, as someone who is fighting for visibility. But the more he fights for visibility, the more he traps himself.

And so I was intrigued by these thoughts. it often happens, the title stuck on and, know. Was it one of those things where whenever you started thinking more about panopticism, you jotted it down, this could be a great movie title? yeah, I was at the time, you know, I was reading.

I was working on a new project at the time and I thought, you know what, I think this would be an interesting framing device for me as a way to think. Because obviously when you start writing a project, it might last anywhere from two years to five years or maybe 10 years, right? And so I thought I need a framing structure as a way to...

tell a story of this singular story of this individual, but also to think about larger contexts, right? Sure. And so it was actually the title served as a reminder in the beginning. And then it just kind of stayed. Got

So are you big on structure? And you know what, before we get into your film, I'm excited to talk about it, I wanna rewind and I wanna start off with a quote, a filmmaker quote, and then I wanna get into your origin story, kind of where it all began for you. But the quote I'm going with like being on the edge in the unknown. It's an active internal process trying to figure out what it is you are.

I like this messiness and I find comfort in it. That's you, man. How do you say your last name, by the way? George. George, I barely speak good English. I'm from North Carolina. So, I love that quote though. I found it on I looked at your filmography too. You have.

Some good looking stuff here. I watched the New Year that you sent. Very nice. You went to TIFF with that, it looks And then I watched Panopticon, which, stuff. Thank you so much for sharing that with me. Thank you. I feel so honored to get these sneak peeks on these films, too. I didn't really even think about that when I started doing this, but being able to kind of see these great films before even a festival audience does, you know, I feel very blessed. So.

Again, I want to get into Panopticon, but I got a refrain and go back to asking you, how did you get into filmmaking? Were you doing it before you knew you wanted to do it or did you know it before you were doing it? How did it go for you? So it's funny because for a completely unrelated reason, I had to share my autobiographical essay with a friend today.

the essay that I wrote for my film school application. And I begin the essay by saying that, you know, unlike a lot of people who got into film, I didn't have, you know, a father who gave me a camera at the age of eight. Or I wasn't making films with my sibling, you know, as a kid. Like, I really didn't think about...

filmmaking until much later into my adolescence. I think I was about 20 years old. And I was studying media and communications. And I was always an avid film viewer, but I wasn't considering, I was really thinking about music more than I took this class, Film History and Form.

with the professor Scott Selberg, this was at NYU, and I realized there, after watching True Force 400 Blows, that something clicked for me. It was a very emotional experience watching this film, and so I thought, I'm gonna try it. And that application to film school followed the year later.

What was it about 400 blows, do you think, that did it for you? It's hard to single out one particular thing about it. It's a whole experience. I really connect it to the feeling of vulnerability for this kid who kind of has the parents, but they're not around, which is similar to my situation. I grew up.

having both parents, you know, I mean alive, but not around. And you fend for yourself, you're kind of, yeah, there's a great sense of vulnerability and uncertainty at that young age that settles in and you have to navigate the world.

as best as you can, which you really don't know much. So there's something about that. There's something about this abandonment that he experiences that I connected to. And I wasn't conscious of this, but looking back, I guess what I connected to was this idea that here's a story that somebody told that is.

in on many levels, at least emotionally so similar to my if I told my story? guess there was some kind of a connection like that that I made, but I guess, you know, I wasn't conscious. I was operating quite instinctively. It was just really a feeling. I love that. I mean,

matter who you are and what your background is, and whether you're into movies or not at that point, like it's crazy. There's always a movie out there that can really hit someone in a certain way, anyone in a certain way, right? I mean, it's beautiful. When you say 400 Blows being your big inspiration, totally see that by getting a glimpse of your work. You know, I see the themes, I see similarities for

It's been a minute since I've watched 400 Blows. I've seen it a few God, it's so good. 1959, 62, what year is that? 1959. 59, okay. Yeah, and just imagining how amazing it was when it came out then, could you the filmmaking techniques, just the storyline and how this.

poor kid can't catch a trying to get ahead, but he has no parents that are really there for him. And he's trying to kind of survive in his own way, right? And then he gets accused of like cheating, but really he not.

being taken seriously and not having support. And I guess we're talking about too, like coming of age, right? In a way, like there's something about the coming of age is universally just very grabbing. Panopticon's coming of age, you would say? Your film as well. I think the ages vary between,

these films, they are definitely coming of age films. think that that is straight from Truffaut's life. I think he might have

kid who is his best friend in the film is inspired by Truffaut's closest

So talk about taking real life and bringing it over to filmmaking. as Truffaut did with 400 Blows and as you've done with your films.

Well, I found, for example, in this film that it was very difficult for me to, in most cases, take real life and insert it into a film. I found during writing the script that I had to create some kind of distance. To give you an example, I was...

I was trying for a long time to write the father's character and you know, I inevitably ended up writing my own father, which I wasn't really comfortable with. It was too close to home and I didn't want that. What I did want, however, was to capture this distant relationship, this kind of estranged relationship between father and son.

So on an emotional level, I wanted to capture that, but I didn't want to just put my own father straight into the And so it was at that point that I recalled a friend of mine back from eighth grade. Her father one day decided to go to a monastery, Georgia and as in other places, it means if...

he succeeds in becoming a monk and being consecrated as a monk. He must cut all ties to civic life, including his family. So it's a very dramatic here was an example of a father who leaves, an abandoning who was not my own father. So I figured it was a nice way to kind of

distance myself from reality, real far from what I've made, most of the work, if not all of it, deals with religion. In some ways, it's an endlessly theme for me. So I thought, okay, I'm gonna explore this aspect. So I called up my friend, I asked her to tell me the story of her own father, who is still a

something like 18 years later, 20 years I asked him what it was like and why he did it. And it was a really fascinating conversation. helped me to distance myself while at the same time still, you know, maintaining the emotional core that I wanted to explore, which was.

an estranged relationship between father and son, an abandoning father, a father who leaves. And this is also a way in which I was connecting to 400 Blows because the main question of the film, both underlying question and the question that is directly asked inside the classroom during the English lesson is, where is the father?

the English teacher in the classroom keeps asking the kids to repeat this question, where is the father, which is a funny scene because the French have a hard time with the TH, so they cannot really pronounce the father. But really, you know, underneath the comedy of it is a fundamental question that I think Truffaut was himself grappling with having.

grown up without a father figure and then later sort of identifying Andre Bazin as the father figure. So to whom he dedicated the film. question was very relevant to me and I was able to kind of capture this idea of father who leaves, father who abandons, but while abandoning leaves behind.

the presence of a different kind of father, higher father or holy father, you know, God, basically. So that is that scene in which the father tells him that he must pray, he must go to church, he must be a good boy because God sees everything. And in some ways, the father erects this surveillance tower for Sandro of an omniscient,

God that sees everything and this is the beginning of all sorts of troubles for this character Religion what where's your fascination? Where do you where's your fascination come from with that? You think besides the fact that it's pretty universally fascinating if you sit back and think about it But for you personally, what is it about religion?

Well, you know, Georgia is a deeply religious an Orthodox Christian country. But interestingly, I grew up without religion. My parents were never religious.

I remember picking up this urgency when I was about 14 years old. guess from societal pressures. was the first one with my sister to go to church and we started to really the church and subsequently even trying to persuade our parents to.

really, usually it's the other way around, right? Interesting. Yeah. And so I found later in life that it was my way of fitting in. It was my way of finding belonging in this society in which being religious, being an Orthodox is a super valuable currency, speaking. And so I think that was...

an instrument for me to fit in, to belong. So I wanted to explore this aspect as well because in this film, the moment Sandro reveals to his friend that his father is a monk, he is immediately respected within that circle of those dudes who automatically start to respect him for.

no apparent reason other than the fact that his father is a monk. And he really begins to fit in and he really assumes this role of the good son, the son of a monk. And so I wanted to explore the societal aspect of So, you know, it's, that's one of the reasons. I mean, I think that a lot of it goes beyond.

something that's me ask you, are you religious now? Do you practice a religion? No, I But I would like to recall another quote, if I may, which is one of my favorites. I think that Orson Welles said about Louis Bu Noël once that Bu Noël was an atheist.

but only in the way that a Catholic could be.

You know, I grew up Southern Baptist in North Carolina and they preach revelations every Sunday, Sunday night, Wednesday night. And I mean, I'm not religious now either, probably because they tried to force it down my throat. But religion is very fascinating and very, in my opinion, can be good, can be bad, mostly bad. But that's just my opinion. It can be very tribal, can bring communities together.

Anyways, moving right The ending of 400 Blows, what is your takeaway? What does that get when he's on the beach and he's like a zoom in on his face, I think, something like that. And what is that? What did you take away when you first watched

as far as when I first saw it, I think that I was so overwhelmed by emotion that I wasn't really capable of any sort of analysis. I'm not sure I am now either, but I think

What's emotional to me about that scene is that he runs until the end of the world, in a sense. He reaches the edge of the world and that is how...

being in a way an orphan could feel sometimes, you know, not that I am, but in some ways being without parents, being without

essential figures, you know, parental figures in your life that might feel like you're hitting the wall constantly or you know, you've you've you have nowhere else to go and he hits the ocean. He turns around and you know, the question on his face is now

To me it's a manifestation of a crisis for a child to reach that state of total uncertainty, which is, I think, exemplified in this very physical scene. He's running a lot. There's a very long take of him running along. You can hear his breathing. And then in some ways, I think that ocean is associated with freedom of sorts. You know, you see the horizon.

there might be a light there. But I think that that is not particularly the view on life that this film proposes, at least for me, the way I see it. I may be even the way a true phosoid, I don't know. But I think that it's a deeply unsettling moment.

Got you. your origin or your coming of NYU,

What comes to mind? What's the most valuable piece of knowledge you think you brought away or experience or whatever

I had the honor of meeting Jim Jarmusch. There was a screening at the New York Film Festival and I was a big fan, so I decided to go. And I was fortunate enough to get a chance to talk to him for a couple of minutes. told me this thing that,

stuck with me to this day. He said that film school was a good experience overall for him, but he had to unlearn a lot of the things that he learned. And so I think that's very true. And I think in some ways could be perceived paradoxically, but I think a good sign, a sign of good film school is that...

you end up walking out of it with a need to unlearn some of the things. Which really means that you learned. you are now trying to unlearn it because you have maybe found your own voice. And if that is the thing that you walk away with, that is the urge, the itch that you walk away with from film school that you are now needing to unlearn some of the things.

I think that is a good been exposed to certain things to know whether to then get to a point of like, should I take this or leave this probably, right? did you have to unlearn post film school? Anything come to mind? Yeah, well, one of the things is,

that I tried to do with this film was a total indifference towards structure. I decided to narrow look at the structure of the film. I decided to write the script more intuitively than analytically. And I usually what I try to do is write first couple of drafts, then take a step back and then analyze.

the structure and see what this thing wants to be. I never begin with structure so as to avoid pitching -hauling ideas and fitting ideas within the structure. You know, you have so many beautiful films that don't follow the structure and then you have so many films that are a perfect 3x structure and they're not, they don't have a soul. So anyway, I really wanted to write intuitively

When do you apply the structure? When does that come like after your first couple of drafts of an intuitive writing? Yeah, usually after a first couple of drafts I like to take a step back and look at the thing that I've written and see what it is and What is the structure that is trying to be? What is the form that is trying to be and it's It's not something I did for this project, but the funny thing happened

that during the editing stage, when we started to really trim the film down to what it needed to be, I realized that I had written a three -act structure film. forcefully, but instinctually. guess so. But I recall the words of Andy Beenan, who was our professor at Columbia.

one of the writers of Boys Don't Cry and is one of our beloved professors who said that at a certain point that you know the structure when you don't think about it and you end up making a film in 3X structure anyway. There is something to be said about the threes and the...

in terms of human storytelling. Even if you don't think about particulars of, I don't know, inciting incident, act of turns, midpoint and so on. You know, human storytelling is, I think, built on threes, right? When you're telling a story to somebody, you're not thinking about structure, but what you are doing is you're setting it up, you're telling the main story, and then you are sort of wrapping it up.

I think all storytelling happens in those parts to a greater... It's like math. It's like a blend of English and math, if you will, and the balance of a good structure in a way. But going back just for a second about how you're definitely careful about not making it feel pigeonholed and formulaic, I've been guilty of putting structure first in the past, and I do regret it now. I regret it.

and there's been times now, like recently, where I'm more documentary filmmaking, and I'm letting it come to me, then, like you just said, in the edit, and during filming, I then start trying to identify what structure might lend itself to what's already

you don't begin with a structure, I think that that allows characters to pull through a little bit more, come to the fore. At least, you know, that is if you do start with character and certain kind of drive, certain kind of motivation, certain kind of think that the structure should be the byproduct of characters desire. Love that. Love that. That's nice.

I've been filming this private investigator for the past three years, two and a half years. And that's my current documentary around Los Angeles. And it's good stuff, but not until three weeks ago did I realize that it's probably a memoir and not a detective story. Do you know what I mean? Like as far, I'm like, my God, this is all about like looking at what's there and what keeps presenting itself over and over again, which is like mortality, nostalgia.

He's looking back into the past constantly. He's also trying to redesign himself, his future self. Like this is a fucking memoir. This is not, I mean, it's a detective story, but it's mainly a memoir, you know? And not because I want it to be, but because it just keeps screaming at me, hello, this is the right structure, I'm over here. And once I've started kind of re -editing and re -compartmentalizing my footage, it's like, my God, I think I discovered the movie that it needs to be, you know? I'm very excited. This was like three weeks ago.

So as far as structure, yeah, like the value of structure, my gosh, and the value of story forms, established story forms and forms that even the everyday person is familiar with without really knowing it consciously, whether it be a three act structure or like a five act structure, whatever, you know, like whatever it is, or even I think

He wasn't big on necessarily three acts more than just like having six strong sequences tied through theme or can simplify that even further by recalling a quote from Howard Hawks, who said that a good movie should have three fantastic scenes and no bad scenes. Yeah. Yeah. Easy enough.

would you say the main ingredient or one of the most important ingredients for a film to work would be? Like what comes to mind when I ask that?

I think it has to be honest. And I think that audiences really can tell when a film is not honest.

You can forgive a lot of things, a lot of flaws in a of my favorite films have flaws that even the directors talk about and obviously there's no flawless film, except for 400 Blows perhaps. But honesty is one thing that I think audiences do not really forgive.

Great answer. It's good stuff. Yeah. And I think that I would have a hard time forgiving myself as well. I've made a movie that I can't forgive myself. I mean, I have. I think we all have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? Let's talk about the importance of that. Talk about the importance of making a movie that you look back with.

with a little bit of regret or whatever. I mean, I'm gonna answer it for myself real quick and say the lessons that I've learned and the things that I don't do now, you know, because of it. But for you, what is it? What do you think? The value of making a film that you regret in some way? Well, there's one film that, it's a short film, but you know, when I was in my second year at Columbia, we, you know, a group of friends, my...

my classmates, there was about six of us, we decided to make six short films, each one would direct a short, but make it so that it's an omnibus feature.

thought, you know, while we're students, why don't we walk away from film school with a feature? And we did. We went up to upstate New York. We shot it. You know, we would just we would crew for each other. I would be director on my short. But then the next day I would be, you know, in the camera department or something for my friend and so on. We just it was a beautiful experience. So I don't regret it on that level. But as it often happens when you try to catch.

two birds with one stone, we didn't manage to make it a feature that would work. But also the shorts didn't work as standalone shorts because they were sort of in between trying to make the feature work. those films never saw the light of day and it was a really good learning moment. And I think it was one of the films that

While my emotional state at the time was honest, I don't think that I would manage to execute it in a way that was honest. I think it was just a very strange film and we buried those short films. But other than that, I think that, I haven't really made so many films, right? I mean, I've made four short films in this feature now,

tried to be honest. cannot say if I was fully honest at all times. probably not because there's always an inevitable element of artifice when you're creating the intention of trying to be honest and keep it as real as possible is like where it's at. I was getting coffee and cigarette vibes too with that.

that compilation feature you were telling me and you said Jim Jarmusch is a big inspiration too. Was it kind of a bit of an inspiration, coffee and cigarettes for that? Well, I think if anything, it was more the more Night on Earth, which is another Jarmusch film that's set in all in taxis in five different cities. Okay. One night. Never saw that one. I'm gonna watch that. It's a really good one. Yeah.

move on to your current film. Let's move on to the present day here. Sure. Do you feel good about the end result? And how excited are you for Carlo B. Verri, where you're world premiering there, huh?

Really excited because it took us two years to get to this premiere and what ends up happening is that aside from really worrying about the film, what I really most worry about is the crew and the actors who are waiting impatiently. They have done so much work, they're waiting impatiently to, where are we gonna see the film? When is the...

And so I'm happy at least that they're gonna get a chance to present this film. They're gonna get a chance to, be the face of the film. So that part's exciting. as it always happens, you watch a film and you just...

cringe on so many occasions. I'm there now. We just had to watch it for a test for a DCP and, you know, I, you know, it's hard to watch, but it's a great film. I mean, I'm, you know, I will say it's a great film, dude. Good job. Great job. Thanks. Thanks. Can I say something real quick before I was in a test screening for this movie called Vice.

Annapurna film came out, Christian Bell film, this like tight screening room, maybe 30 people and the director, my God, Adam McKay was right behind You had like 30 people in here and it was like Will Ferrell, Judd Apatow, name drop, name drop, name you have,

Adam McKay, he made this great, I thought it was a great movie. is cringing, he is, I've never seen someone so fidgety in my life and it's like this dude has made so many, he was coming off of The Big Short, which was a great film. And it's just like, no matter who you are, man, it's hard, I guess it's hard. Especially when you're not quite locked up. I think he was just making tweaks there, but I never forget, it comforted me on the next time that I had to be in that situation on a smaller scale.

Farrell, Appetile wasn't sitting in the audience. But it's like if Adam McKay is cringing, that's just a filmmaker thing, isn't it? I mean, we care so much and it's like, how can you not feel that way? I will say there was one time where I screened this last documentary at Santa Barbara and I wasn't bothered by it. I was fine with it. was eating popcorn. But with my dad, like no issues at all. I wasn't concerned with Who Thought What, which was a great film. But.

That was the first time I experienced think that's the goal really to get to a point where you can just eat popcorn. I think I would love don't know. I mean, I, I read somewhere once Kurosawa was asked, you know,

you stop making films? I think he was in his 70s or late 80s, he was old. And he says, well, I'll stop as soon as I learn how to make them. And it's like, well, okay, you're full of shit. But also,

guess whenever you're at a festival and it's locked up and it's on that DCP, it's like, you can't do anything about it anyways. But that was the only time I experienced that. God, it felt.

I was like, man, this is great. But hopefully that continues. I don't know. I feel like I just now know what I'm doing too, by the way. It took me 25 you're at a screening, a world premiere. I was watching the,

the one with Robert Pattinson, William DeFoe, the lighthouse. yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. In Cannes, at the premiere, the DCP got stuck completely and it was... They couldn't figure it out for like... Damn. Was it? That's brutal. I don't think I might have heard about that. It was horrible. And then they got it to work, they had to rewind and there was no sound. It was just, you know...

Nightmare. okay. Talk Panopticon.

such a beautifully shot film. I don't want to, I hate to start with that, but that's just what comes to mind. Beautifully framed and captured and I just, just such confident directing and cinematography. Like, you know, it was very specific and it intentional in all the best

You know, and just that coming of age of it all and like kind of getting a glimpse into a world that I know nothing

I took a peek at your previous short Year,

I believe you said it inspired in some way a panopticon, is that correct?

Well no, it was just that when I was writing the decided to you know take the first 10 minutes of the feature script and I was coming back to Georgia I had called you know I called up my friends

I have this idea as part of a longer thing that I'm writing and use it as an excuse to hang out for two days and see what happens. And so that's how that came it was also my way of just sort of testing where the story could go.

was also a way to test the film language. Okay. You know, allowing shots to kind of unfold, not much cutting and so on. Right. Right. Within this. Yeah. Okay. It's a stepping stone towards the feature in a way. A bit of a workshop in a way.

I mean it kind of reminds me of what Gaspar No said about Enter the Void. He said Irreversible was kind he wanted to make Enter the Void first and Irreversible was of a workshop in a way trying to get closer to that film. Your directing style, what would you say your directing style is?

and your approach to directing, anything you want to share.

I think that it varies from film to film. I'm a, you know, I'm part of the, I guess, school of thought that a director's job is to serve the story. And so if the story requires to have tableau shots, because it's a certain kind of...

elevated story from reality than that is what it requires, which was one of my shorts, Fatherland. But in for Pernopticon, I thought a long time about this and I thought it was in the end wise to completely remove any presence of a director. I think

another takeaway from film school. I had a professor whom I'm friends with now, Eric Mendelson, a director is like a guide, like a tour guide. Your job is to take a group of people.

to the top of the mountain to show them the view, but you are not the view. And so I really am of the opinion that, you know,

a director should remove themselves from the film and really be there to serve the story. It's what the story requires. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. That's a great quote. Yeah, I like this quote a lot. Yeah. That's our that's our little Instagram sound bite right there, probably. Not to think too far in that. But no, that's that's such a quality piece of you know what I mean? Like that's that's like a.

It's like medicine for filmmakers to take with them if they see that. It's just a good reminder. And I think a lot of people maybe don't, they need reminding about that. Okay, let me ask you more, maybe it's boring for you, but I think it's good information for people to understand. development process new film, how did it go from kind of script to

How did you get the financing and how did you kind of get into production? What was the path towards production for them? Yeah, so it was always going to be a European film. And so what that means is that you have to go through the ropes and go through the proper channels of European co -productions, especially that Georgia doesn't have enough money to, you know, be self -sufficient. So.

After you get the Georgian fund, the local fund, you still need to seek European co -producers. In our case, we had France, Italy and Romania in addition to Georgia as the main producing before that, the script was developed. I was fortunate enough to get accepted to the there's a writing residency that

that Cannes Film Festival has and that was the first, first, first step to write the script. After that, we took it to Torino Script Lab, followed by Torino Feature Lab. This was around the time of pandemic and so, and various different pitch platforms, pitching platforms and you know,

Lot of work, lot of work and patience. Yeah, it was just a lot of traveling with the script and a lot of opinions, a lot of voices, a lot of people and which can be good, but could also be detrimental to a certain degree because I think that I don't know. I think one of the takeaways for me is that you one should not really dwell too long on a script. Otherwise, you know, you become a whole new person.

I mean, talk about the value of the labs, I mean, talk about what's good about does one get into a,

a premier kind of writing and feature lab.

Well, yeah, I mean, it's always an application and except, you know, some labs are by invitation only like Sundance directors labs, but these ones that where I participated, they were just, you know, you send an application and they review your past work. They review the script or treatment and there's usually an interview stage. They talk to you. good to have a producer attached.

if not a producer and co -producers and so yeah that's kind of how it goes. Gotcha, gotcha. And I guess whenever you submitted Panopticon they were, your previous film was a new year, right? Which went to TIFF, was that your only short time? I always included all short films, all four. know we're hopping around a little bit.

new year got into TIFF and then your previous shorts, anything else getting into a major festival? The question for you is what was like the big moment where you feel like you got through the door as far as getting into a TIFF or somewhere like that? Did you ever have one of those moments where you're like, like this sense of reward and relief? I want to say maybe there were little doors, tiny, tiny doors. I don't...

I have a sense that there has been a door yet opened. But, you know, yeah, we went to TIFF with a new year and then we went to TIFF as well with Red Apples. We also went to Sundance with Fatherland and we went to Clermont -Ferrand in France with my first short and later with Red Apples as well. So.

helps to have such festival premieres when you are trying to lift your project off the ground yeah, those were tiny stepping stones or doors that were open,

thankfully it's about, you know, TIFF and Sundance and all these, you know, it's better than, I don't know, the fabricated North Carolina International Film Festival of Kinston. You know, I don't know. Like it's something, it's talk about what those festivals did for the film. Did it expose the...

Did it give you more of a reach? Did you meet people at these festivals? Talk about the value of getting into a TIFF and Sundance. Or is it just a myth that these bigger festivals can help you and you feel like maybe it did to a

Yeah, I think that the programmers at these bigger festivals that obviously have, bigger fish to fry, they have, you know, feature film sections like TIFF or Sundance, you know, but the programmers for sure, they always have tried to do a really good job to make the filmmakers feel like...

you know, they're at the center of their own little universe because it's really, nobody really en masse, you know, cares about short films, right? It's a very niche thing and ordinary folks, I mean, just people don't necessarily watch short films, what I always really appreciate is the work that the film programmers do

you know, from the selection to organization always been a really great experience, especially at, you know, these bigger ones to go there and present films. And of course you meet a lot of people, both filmmakers, industry folks who...

You just never know when you're gonna see them again, if at all, but I think that it's an excuse to be in the same space with people who breathe and live cinema in whatever way. So in that sense, it was always a celebration of the work that we had put in into these short films.

And of course later in the later stage when you're trying to finance your feature or go to these labs, et cetera, you know, people look at your shorts and they see, okay, well, you know, this has gone to Sundance, this has gone to TIFF or whatever. get a feeling that, well, this filmmaker might be able to handle this feature. it's.

a certain kind of pattern perhaps that they appreciate. It's a resume in a way. They need to know who... Yeah, it's a resume. But I have to say that it doesn't necessarily guarantee that you're going to make a great film. I think that the two forms are very, very different. Shorts and features? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I always think that, you know, some stories are just shorts and some stories, you know, same as literature, you know, Tolstoy wrote big novels, but also short stories, right. And so, but I think that it's infinitely harder to you talked about Christopher Nolan. He has this I think there is a clip on YouTube. He's talking about the structure, the hairpin structure of Memento.

And talks about how much more difficult it is to make a short and I feel like now that I've made both the challenges are different but short is certainly you just don't have time to pack the story in and so... Gotta be concise and specific I guess. Heavy hitting quickly.

are lucky if you capture that moment of certain kind of honesty. And yeah, that's really it. But there's no audience for it really. And so at any rate, it's not a guarantee that you'll be able to handle a feature. And in my experience, that was something that I experienced firsthand. I felt that...

making Panopticon was sort of like, I don't know what I'm doing. I mean, this is not what I had been doing. This is something completely different. It's a different beast. So talk about, yeah, the first time making a feature. Like, what were some highlights and some challenges with that? What did you experience that you had never experienced before with your shorts? know, on a given short you have about

you know, five to seven days of shoot probably. And the story is maybe 10 to 15 pages long. And it's short enough for you to be able to handle and carry it inside your so you can be on set and know exactly that you've got the entire story in your head and you can. Whereas, you know, with the feature,

it is much more difficult to carry it in your head. It's a good point. Especially when you're filming out of order, which is most of the time, it is very challenging A short could have about five scenes and that's it. A feature might have 55 scenes on a shorter side, but maybe even 100 scenes and more. So...

how to carry that in your head. So that was really, really challenging and it required a lot of prep in advance to a lot of sort of reminders to myself, you know, as to where we are in each given moment in the film so that there is a... And I would imagine all that prep and all that lab work that you put in with the script and everything, you were so familiar. I'm sure you could see that screenplay inside and out. Did that help whenever you were shooting out of order?

to kind of remember where you're at in the story with your arcs, et cetera? Yeah, well, that's the thing that, you know, I guess there are some benefits to, you know, sitting on a script for like five, six years becomes a part of you. And are able to track emotion easily, especially shooting out of order. But, you know, I think that...

That was one of the main challenges and how to carry the film entirely in your head at all times. But, and you can't, it's hard to envision, I mean, it's hard to really see it fully. A short film, you can really see it and project it all in your head. A feature is harder to project in your I got you. When

When you're in post -production, when you were in post -production for Panopticon and it started coming together, was there a sense of dread or was there a sense of relief or what kind of sense did you have? How was it? Well, in this case, it was similar to the steps that I have had with the shorts, where in the beginning is always dread, always dread. It's sort of crisis.

with a little bit more work, you start to see things and some things start to work. and a certain kind of numbness that sets in. So, you know, at the end, you just don't know.

to feel about it other than it's hard to watch. Gosh, what an unsettling place to be, right? After all you put in. But I mean, you feel good about Panopticon? You feel good? Pretty confident? I feel good about having done it. I mean, I feel good about the process of it. I feel good this was the story that I've been

wanting to tell for a long time and...

some ways, once you tell it, once you kind of put it all together, it's over, it dies there. So anything, in a sense, anything that happens after you lock a picture and you finish the film is sort of like a bonus.

definitely nice necessary in this industry to have festivals, festival, whatever, you know, like distribution. And obviously having it in the theater is super, super, super important

you know, in the end what you were doing, right? Yeah, it's a small window too, right? I mean, it comes and goes so quickly as far as that DCP gets dust on it real quick. Talk about getting into Karlovy, Karlovy very, is that correct? Is that how you pronounce it? Karlovy Vary, but. I see, I'm glad I asked. Karlovy Vary before I sound like a complete idiot. Karlovy Vary.

Talk about getting accepting into that, the email or whatever. Does it feel like a perfect fit? Does it feel like a good fit for the film? Yeah, talk about kind of getting in there and what it means to you to be able to premiere there. well, it's a huge honor

the festival is in its 58th edition. It's been around for almost 60 years. It's an A -list film festival. It's super well respected in the film industry all over the But more than that, I think that I really respect who are running

is a festival in which they care about cinema. It's not a space for, consumerism and commercial commercialism. And just a place.

of celebration of cinema and I really appreciate that and I appreciate also that we got a chance to be in the main competition. So the Crystal Yes. really happy that that's happening for

team that made this film huge breakthrough for us for this film.

what do you have planned after Karlovy? Is there anything in the works? Do you have any other festivals that you may or may not be screening at and then talk about distribution plans, if any?

Yeah, at the moment we don't have either of those plans. We don't know where the film might go next.

think we're just sort of taking it one step at a time prepping for this festival premiere and then see where it goes. sure you're going to have, yeah, it's going to be just talk to Christine Vachon, you know, she's let's see if killer will distribute it. Isn't she leading up the jury this Yes. And.

She's someone that, you know, killer films is someone, you know...

admired for many, many years, of it's really scary and intimidating to I met her at Sundance in 2016 and she was so cool and down to earth. I wouldn't be intimidated. I mean, when you have so much respect for someone, it's just wow. No, I know, I know, I know, I know what you mean.

Anything else about Panopticon that you want to share

would say that this film was...

I think five or six years into making from the conception, lot of part of the making of the film, the process of making of the film. I think it's just a beautiful way

celebrate the film and their work, Finally, we can say something to the people who worked on the film that, okay, we've got something and we've got something honorable.

and they're very thankful to everybody who was part of this there's another part of it is not everybody can attend, but that's a separate a political issue that is very unfortunate. But do you want to get into that or just bypass that? Do you want to talk about that? I mean,

You know, I think that Georgian Film Center is an organization that, under the current administration, is utterly incompetent and unwilling and unable to see the value of what it means to make films and have...

really no experience in that department, have no business of running the institution. when a film goes to a festival, where else can you go if not an institution like so it's just very unfortunate that everybody can attend the film. People have worked very hard to make it.

there will be other festivals. I'm sure there will be. Yeah. Nice. What do you got next? What's coming up for you? projects that I'm developing. These are fiction feature films. And one of them I want to make.

States, one of them I want to make in Georgia. So we'll see what happens after the festival I really would like to.

Make another film very very soon. Are you hooked? Are you addicted? Do you need I think so. Yes, especially this one story Which is hard to talk about because there doesn't really have a catchy, you know fancy log line or anything like that, but Yeah, it doesn't really have that but it's But it's something still feeling

might also just slip away at a certain point if I don't do it I guess there are different ways of getting over things. One is to go to therapy, another one is to maybe make films or write. And there's also perhaps another way to let things sort of pass through time and kind of...

disappear particularly certain kinds of pain and I you know, I think I want to just this film next to kind of Get it over with I hear you exercise it.

All right, final question.

And you've been sharing filmmaking advice and you've been a sitting soundbite this whole interview. Any best filmmaking advice that you'd like to share or leave us with?

I'd like to quote one of my favorite filmmakers who was asked the same question in his answer was, don't make any mistakes. And that is Aki Karizmakia. I mean, I don't know. I don't feel that I'm in position to really give advice to anybody, honestly, having just made my first film. But I do think about honesty a lot.

And I think it's one of the hardest things to do. Being honest with your own self while you're making something and not getting carried away with other external things that are always coming your way. And I think I've also been just guilty of that to a certain extent. And I think honesty to your own self is something that personally I...

want to strive for. Beautiful. Hey man. So thank you. That's good stuff. In a way that's advice for myself. No, no, no. It's something to walk away with that's valuable that we can all think about. Good luck with the screening. Thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. Yeah,

the best thing about this podcast is just these cool people that I've met. I feel like I'm like, I don't want to be cheesy, but I do mean this. Like, I feel like I'm like finding family a way, cause this is a solo game. Like filmmaking is solo is solo business a lot of times. So it's so nice to be able to like, just talk to fellow filmmakers.

like yourself. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. really know what you're talking about in terms of the community

you again so

Take care.