>>> Transfer (Romania)
In the middle of a forest there is a complex of buildings made out of dark, red bricks. It is a refugee camp, located in the Dutch country side. The place is very isolated, only a bus stop seems to be the connection with the outside world.
Here arrives the young Georgian, Giga.
Giga receives a bed and a closet in a room divided by white curtain walls in five living corners. He has to share this room with the Croatian Mirko, with the two meters tall Lithuanian, Dlinni, with the Russian chess-fan, Vova, and with the fat Georgian, Jamlet. Everybody in the room has arranged his small living space according on his taste and background. But, there is no privacy at all. The men talk through the curtain walls and argue about unimportant things.
Giga wants to escape from the camp right after arrival, but it doesn’t seem to be so easy. Even getting another room makes no sense, because all rooms in the camp are the same.
But Giga discovers very soon, that the camp is a small universe with its unwritten laws. There is an abundance of humor, solidarity and strong emotions. The camp is a waiting place between past and future.
Soon he meets the Ukrainian girl, Ina (18). Giga and Ina feel a strong attraction to each other and have a brief love affair. But Ina is not alone. Her fiancé, Sergey, has declared her as his little sister at the camp police and is ready to do everything, in order to keep her by him.
Giga hopes for a future with Ina, but she finally chooses for her fiancé. This is a stun for Giga and he realizes, that the camp is not a place where human relations and love can be fulfilled. At the end he gets transferred to an apartment in a small Dutch town.
TRANSFER is a script based on the personal memories of the director Artchil Khetagouri.
Artchil Khetagouri
Artchil Khetagouri grew up in Tbilisi, close to the film studio, where his father worked. Since an early age he could observe famous Georgian directors shooting movies and he got passionate about their profession. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the studio which used to be full of people, got suddenly empty. In Georgia started a civil war and Artchil left his country.
He studied in Amsterdam at the Film and Television Academy, where he directed several short films and a documentary, "Shining Shoes", broadcast on YLE (Finland).
His graduation short fiction, "Heritage", premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival and was awarded at several international festivals. It was released in the cinema in the Netherlands and broadcast on the Dutch public channels IKON TV and Kunstkanaal.
Afterwards Artchil gave a film directing workshop at the Aarhus University (Denmark).
In 2006 he went back to Tbilisi and made a feature documentary about his former neighbors. The film "Akhmeteli 4" was awarded the "Prix Regards Neufs" at the Visions du Réel 2007 Film festival in Nyon and the First Prize at the Rhodes Film Festival. Artchil works since 2007 on two new projects in Romania.
Ileana Stanculescu
Ileana Stanculescu was born in 1976 in Bucharest, Romania, where she grew up. After graduating from the University of Paris X in France, Ileana Stanculescu studied in the script and film-dramaturgy department of the film academy "Konrad Wolf" in Potsdam-Babelsberg.
During her studies she directed short films and wrote several scenarios. From 2002 to 2004 Ileana Stanculescu worked as a script consultant in the script department of the film academy and in 2003 also in the Berlin based production company "Silbersee Film".
In 2004 she graduated with the documentary: "Podul peste Tisa", which won, among other prizes, the "First Appearance Award" at the International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam. It was selected by several major festivals (Moscow Film Festival, Thessaloniki, Sarajevo Film Festival, Silverdocs, etc.) and broadcast on YLE (Finland) and on FOX International.
Later on she directed the documentary "Satul sosetelor" and produced "Akhmeteli 4" (by Artchil Khetagouri).
"Satul sosetelor" received the Promotional Prize for Joint Film Productions of the Robert-Bosch-Stiftung. In 2006 it was nominated for the "Joris Ivens Award" in Amsterdam and won the British Council Award for the Best Romanian Documentary. In 2007 Ileana participated in the Nipkow Program (Berlin) with one of her latest projects, "Noosfera".
