Georgian director Ana Urushadze won the Best Director award at the 32nd Sarajevo Film Festival for her second feature Supporting Role, taking a unanimous jury vote and a €10,000 purse earmarked for her next project. The festival closed August 21 after running August 14-21.
Jury member Athina Rachel Tsangari, the Greek director and producer, presented the prize. The win lands as Urushadze prepares a third film that may leave Georgian state funding behind.
The timing sharpens the story. A regional prize arrives while the national pipeline that once backed her remains contested ground. The award money points forward. The industry conditions around it do not.
Unanimous Call From the Jury
The competition jury, headed by British actress Emily Watson and including European Film Academy director Matthijs Wouter Knol and Tsangari, chose Urushadze without dissent. Sandra Wollner’s Everytime took the Heart of Sarajevo for best narrative feature and its €16,000 prize.
We were fascinated by the combination of the banal and the dreamlike, and by her relentless curiosity about the essence of life and cinema. We eagerly await her next cinematic adventure. The 2026 Best Director award is unanimously presented to Ana Urushadze.
Athina Rachel Tsangari, presenting the award at the National Theatre
Variety and The Hollywood Reporter both recorded the same jury language of enchantment with her irreverent blend of the banal and the oneiric. Eva Kostić won best actress for 17; Adrian Văncică took best actor.
A unanimous director prize beside a separate best-film winner marks a clear split in emphasis. The jury singled out craft and curiosity rather than folding every honor into one title. Tsangari’s public reading of the citation at the National Theatre fixed that language in the festival record.
- Jury head: Emily Watson
- Jury members named in coverage: Matthijs Wouter Knol, Athina Rachel Tsangari
- Best Director: Ana Urushadze, Supporting Role (€10,000, next-project purse)
- Heart of Sarajevo (best narrative feature): Sandra Wollner, Everytime (€16,000)
What Supporting Role Does
Supporting Role (Georgian title Meorekariskhovani Roli) runs 139 minutes. It follows Niaz Ninua, a once-heroic Georgian film star played by Dato Bakhtadze, who has faded from the screen. A young female director, Aza (Elene Maisuradze), offers him a bizarre and deeply unsympathetic supporting part in her debut. He leaves the audition offended. Then he drifts through Tbilisi on a night odyssey of chance encounters and gradually surrenders to the role.
Urushadze told The Hollywood Reporter the film is “about realizing the elusive nature of reality, and taking control of your life.” Inspiration came from her own casting sessions for her debut, when an older actor bristled at taking direction from a young beginner and walked out. The generational clash, male ego and creative liberation sit inside the story without heavy underlining.
- Co-production: Georgia, Estonia, Türkiye (with further partners listed on festival sheets)
- Lead: Dato Bakhtadze as Niaz Ninua
- Key supporting: Elene Maisuradze as the young director Aza; Nata Murvanidze
- Cinematography: Rein Kotov
- World premiere: Tiger Competition, International Film Festival Rotterdam, February 2026
Bakhtadze was a late find after other actors fell through; Urushadze said the camera loves him and she cannot imagine anyone else in the part. Variety’s Beatrice Loayza called the result a lumbering movie star’s surreal and wryly melancholic soul-search with a mesmerizing effect.
The plot turns on refusal, then drift, then acceptance. An offended exit from an audition becomes a night walk through the city. Chance encounters loosen the old star’s grip on status. By the time he yields to the unsympathetic part, the film has reframed control as something taken rather than granted.
That arc grew from a concrete industry moment. A younger director gave notes. An older actor walked. Urushadze kept the bruise of that session and built a full narrative around what pride costs and what surrender might free.
How the Boycott Reached Her Second Feature
Urushadze describes the Georgian film industry as “in a dead-end situation.” Directors, producers, writers and performers have boycotted the Georgian National Film Center (GNFC), the main state funding body, for years over restructuring that many call a purge of critical voices and a slide toward censorship.
Hundreds of professionals formed the “Georgian Cinema is Under Threat” movement. Films still emerge through co-productions and private routes, yet time passes and many younger talents wait for a first feature that may never arrive under current terms. Supporting Role was among the last projects to clear before conditions tightened further.
What We Know
- Boycott of GNFC by large numbers of filmmakers dates to the 2023-2024 restructuring and staff changes under the Culture Ministry.
- Urushadze says many talented peers have no path to a feature “in the near future.”
- Recent flashpoint: director Uta Beria accused the center of withholding half the funding for his protest-era film Tear Gas and contacting Locarno in an attempt to block its premiere; the festival screened it anyway. The center replied that the production failed to submit a completed version under rules.
What’s Unconfirmed
- Exact current headcount of active boycotters and whether any quiet negotiations are underway.
- Whether GNFC will alter selection or leadership rules in response to continued pressure.
Civil.ge reported the accusations of withheld funding and Locarno interference in mid-August, showing the fight remains live while Urushadze collected her prize.
The boycott does not stop every shoot. It narrows who can start one at home. Co-production paperwork and private money become the workable doors. For younger names still hunting a first feature, those doors can stay shut long enough that careers stall before they begin.
Supporting Role cleared in a closing window. Projects behind it face a tighter gate. That sequence turns one director’s prize week into a wider measure of how long a national cinema can run on side routes alone.
From Scary Mother to This Odyssey
Urushadze was born in Tbilisi on 11 September 1990 and graduated from Shota Rustaveli Theatre and Film State University in 2013. Shorts including Ideas (2010) and One Man Loved Me (2012) preceded her debut.
- 2017, Scary Mother (Sashishi Deda) world-premieres at Locarno, wins Best First Feature; takes Heart of Sarajevo for best film; later Best Feature and Best Actress at Beijing; Georgia’s Oscar submission; European Film Awards discovery shortlist.
- 2017-2018, Further prizes and nominations at Antalya, Asia Pacific Screen Awards, El Gouna and elsewhere establish her as a leading new Georgian voice.
- February 2026, Supporting Role premieres in Rotterdam Tiger Competition, wins Special Jury Award and FIPRESCI Prize at Rotterdam.
- August 2026, Regional premiere and competition slot at Sarajevo; Best Director award.
The Scary Mother synopsis and biography on the European Film Academy site still frames her as the writer-director who followed a 50-year-old housewife choosing writing over family duty. That same interest in people who rewrite the script handed to them runs through the new film.
Nine years separate the Locarno breakthrough from the Rotterdam premiere of the second feature. In that span the shorts-to-debut path hardened into a festival identity: domestic stories that travel, prizes that stack, and a reputation built on characters who refuse the roles assigned at home or at work.
Sarajevo now bookends both features in different ways. Scary Mother took the Heart of Sarajevo for best film. Supporting Role takes Best Director. The city remains a fixed point on her map even as funding routes shift under her feet.
Fear of Butterflies and the Funding Gap
Urushadze’s third feature, Fear of Butterflies, follows a woman near 30 “going through some bizarre things, mentally and physically.” She calls it a detective story with mysticism and a touch of body horror, rooted in her own long phobia of butterflies and a psychologist’s question that linked the fear to illness and invalidity.
Estonian producer Ivo Felt’s Allfilm, already a partner on Supporting Role, is attached again. She is looking abroad for money and is “really open to anything.” Under current rules a film needs a majority of its funding from Georgia to count as a Georgian production. She told The Hollywood Reporter she is writing the script and finds it unfortunate that the next project may not be Georgian, yet “I don’t want to stop doing what I love.”
| Film | Year | Key Festival Results |
|---|---|---|
| Scary Mother | 2017 | Locarno Best First Feature; Sarajevo Heart of Sarajevo; Beijing Best Feature |
| Supporting Role | 2026 | Rotterdam Tiger Special Jury + FIPRESCI; Sarajevo Best Director; Beijing selection |
| Fear of Butterflies | TBA | In development; international financing sought |
The €10,000 Sarajevo purse is real seed money. It does not replace a national majority stake.
Script work continues while the nationality math stays unresolved. A detective frame, mysticism, and body horror would mark a tonal step from the night odyssey of Supporting Role. The constant is the search for partners willing to fund the step.
International Partners Keep Films Moving
Georgia, Estonia, and Türkiye share the credit block on Supporting Role, with further partners listed on festival sheets. That structure is no longer a bonus. It is the route that still works when the main state channel is under boycott.
Allfilm and producer Ivo Felt return for Fear of Butterflies. Continuity on the Estonian side gives the third film a ready production bridge while Urushadze hunts the rest of the budget abroad. She has said she is open to any workable arrangement.
Co-productions keep crews paid and premieres on the calendar. They do not settle the nationality rule that demands a Georgian funding majority for an official Georgian film. The same week a Sarajevo purse lands for the next project, that rule still draws the line between a national title and an international one.
| Project | Known partners or path | Nationality pressure |
|---|---|---|
| Supporting Role | Georgia, Estonia, Türkiye co-production; Allfilm among partners | Cleared before conditions tightened further |
| Fear of Butterflies | Allfilm attached again; financing sought abroad | May not meet Georgian majority threshold |
Rotterdam already treated the second feature as a finished work with craft worth prizes. Sarajevo added a director purse aimed at the third. The partners between those points decide whether the next shoot starts on time.
Both Features Turn on Rewritten Roles
Scary Mother followed a 50-year-old housewife who chose writing over family duty. Supporting Role follows a faded male star who first rejects, then accepts, a demeaning part offered by a young woman director. In both, a person handed a fixed script pushes back until the terms change.
Urushadze has described the new film as a story about the elusive nature of reality and taking control of a life. The debut wore a quieter costume: domestic duty set against creative hunger. The hinge is the same. Someone refuses to stay inside the part other people cast.
Her own casting-room clash with an older actor who would not take notes from a beginner fed the second film directly. Generational friction and male ego become plot engines rather than side notes. The young director character holds power the old star no longer has.
- Debut frame: a housewife rewrites family duty into a writing life.
- Second-feature frame: an aging star rewrites status panic into surrender to a lowly role.
- Shared outcome: control moves from the assigned script to the person living it.
Festival juries have answered that obsession with prizes at Locarno, Sarajevo, Rotterdam, and Beijing. The through-line is legible without heavy underlining. People who change the role still hold her camera.
The Cash Prize Lands in a Freeze
The same week Urushadze accepted the award, the Georgian industry’s fracture remained on display. Filmmakers keep working through co-productions with Estonia, Türkiye and other partners, yet the domestic pipeline stays narrow. Rotterdam’s jury had already praised Supporting Role for relishing the detail and texture of the city and the emotion of reconciling the past; the Tiger Special Jury Award citation noted how the craft of acting becomes a lens for moving through the world.
€10,000 next-project award from Sarajevo
139 minutes runtime of Supporting Role
Two Rotterdam prizes in February before the Sarajevo crown
Majority Georgian funding still required for official nationality
Urushadze takes the win one step at a time. The purse buys time to finish a script. Whether that script becomes a Georgian film is now an open industry question rather than a personal one alone.
Prize cash and co-production goodwill can launch pages into pre-production. They cannot, by themselves, restore a domestic majority stake. The freeze around the GNFC holds. The work continues around it.
For now the record stands clear. A unanimous Sarajevo director award. A third film in the writing room. A national funding path still in dispute. The next move depends on which doors stay open long enough to matter.
