Cinema of Our Times: Otar Losseliani
Otar was a Georgian-French film maker. Due to censorship in the USSR, his early films were repeatedly banned, inducing Losseliani to migrate to France in 1982. Losseliani's first full-length motion picture, November (1966) won a FIPRESCI-prize at the Cannes Film Festival. His film Pastorale, was not released after it was finished in 1976 and disappeared for several years in the Soviet archives was only allowed a limited distribution years later. Once again Losseliani got an impression that his artistic freedom was stolen. After the success of Pastorale at the Berlin Film Festival in 1982, he emigrated from the Soviet Union to France.
In 1984 he filmed Favorites of the Moon in France; the production received an award at the Venice Film Festival the same year and became an international success. In the following years his films were again awarded prizes at the Venice Film Festival (And Then There Was Light (1989), Brigands-Chapter VII (1996)). Monday Morning (2002) won Losseliani a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.