Marija Kavtaradzė

Biography: Marija Kavtaradze graduated from the Academy of Music and Theater, Vilnius, with a BA in directing. She has been making films and writing screenplays for films since 2010. Since her debut in the film industry, Marija Kavtaradze was immediately noticed and appreciated by the Lithuanian film community. Marija Kavtaradze's short films The Last Man (2011) and I Am in My Twenties (2015) were awarded Silver Crane Eggs for best student work. Marija Kavtaradze (along with director Andrius Blaževičius and her sister Tekle Kavtaradze) has also been awarded the Silver Crane for the script of the movie The Saint. Marija Kavtaradze’s best-known movie Summer Survivors appeared in theatres in 2018. It opened Toronto Film Festival in 2019, the film received a special viewer award at the European Film Festival in Lecce, Italy; it was recognized as the Best Baltic Film at the Tallinn Film Festival, and it also won Young Jury Prize at Tofifest Festival in Poland, 2019. The film was voted the best Lithuanian film at the Film Spring Awards.