About 13 Tzameti
2005 Venice Festival
Best First Feature Film
Winner
2006 Sundance Festival
Grand Jury Prize World Cinema
Twenty-two-year-old Sebastien (Georges Babluani) leads an impoverished life with his immigrant family constantly struggling to support them. While repairing the roof of a neighbor’s house, he overhears a conversation about an expected package which promises to make the household rich. Sensing the opportunity of a lifetime, Sebastien intercepts the package which contains a series of specific instructions. Following the clues, he assumes a false identity and manages to slip through the grasp of the enclosing police as he ventures deeper and deeper into the countryside. The closer he gets to his destination and the more people he meets along the way, the less he understands about what he is looking for. Ultimately, he comes face to face with a ring of clandestine gamblers placing bets on the outcome of a multi-player, high stakes tournament of Russian roulette. Directed by newcomer Gela Babluani, 13 TZAMETI (pronounced: ‘zah-meti’) is a winner-take-all thriller, where an unfortunate young man is transformed into Contestant #13 with no way out save his luck.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:
Gela Babluani, the twenty-six year old Director of 13 TZAMETI, was born in Tblisi, Georgia. Shortly after the Berlin Wall crumbled, Gela witnessed a profound period of political and economic change within his country. With the freedom Georgia received from their independence from Russia, also came chaos and a resulting civil war in which corruption, unjustified shootings, and death became a part of everyday life.
Although Gela’s father is a renown filmmaker, (Temur Babluani - La Migration des Moineaux, The Sun of the Wakeful), it wasn’t until Gela studied in Paris that he began to develop his own passion for the art of cinema and storytelling. Even from a distance, Gela’s father remained a key influence in his cinematic approach. He fondly remembered the great silent, black and white Soviet films he discovered as a child with his father in the local Tblisi movie theater. The power of the images and the editing kept him riveted to his seat for hours on end.
Gela has sought to recreate that same intensity in 13 (TZAMETI), his first feature film. He has just finished shooting his second film, L'Ame perdue du Sommet ("The Lost Soul") in Georgia with his father Temur, starring Sylvie Testud, Stanislas Merhar, Pascal Bongard, and Georges Babluani.
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