From today’s L.A. Times:
Filmmaker flashes back to her ’90s girlhood in Georgia for IN BLOOM
Nana Ekvtimishvili recalls things being even worse than depicted in her movie IN BLOOM, which is set in a newly independent Georgia. She and husband/co-filmmaker Simon Gross discuss the film.
By Susan King
“In Bloom,” the foreign language film Oscar submission from Georgia, revolves around two 14-year-old girls coming of age in 1992. Best friends Eka and Natia live in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, a newly independent country after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but independence hasn’t made life any easier.
There’s violence and unrest, with justice doled out vigilante style. Food is scarce and bread lines are long. And a lot of young girls don’t even get the opportunity to be teenagers because they are kidnapped by men and forced into marriage.
Nana Ekvtimishvili, who was raised in Tbilisi, wrote the film, which opens Friday, and co-directed it with her German-born husband, Simon Gross. The two met in Munich, Germany, as film students and currently live and work in Tbilisi.
Read the interview on the L.A. Times website.
