By Christopher Vourlias
Emotions are Georgia by Georgian National Tourism Administration
Georgian filmmaker Ana Urushadze, whose debut film “Scary Mother” won the Best Debut Film Award at the 2017 Locarno Film Festival, is preparing her long-awaited sophomore feature, “Supporting Role.” The writer-director will present the film this week at the works in progress section of CineLink Industry Days, the industry arm of the Sarajevo Film Festival.
The film follows a once-famous star of Georgian cinema who — triggered by a casting session with a young female director — embarks on a bizarre and fatalistic odyssey of self-transformation. Accustomed to playing charming heroic protagonists, he is insulted by the offer of a supporting role. But gradually, without even realizing it, he begins to empathize with his character and seemingly unconsciously accepts the role offered to him.
Speaking to Variety in Sarajevo, Urushadze explained that the film was inspired by auditions for her first feature film, when she was looking for an older man to play the role of the protagonist’s father. One of the actors who showed up was put off when he discovered that Urushadze — “a young and inexperienced girl” — was the writer and director. As a result, he turned down the role.
