Georgian director Levan Koguashvili's new film Guria, which world-premiered at Venice and is the country's Oscar submission (see the news), recently won three awards at Batumi, including Best Director, Best Actor for Kakha Tcholadze and Outstanding Ensemble Performance (see the news). We sat down with the filmmaker after the event to break down his storytelling and visual approach, as well as his work with actors and music.

Cineuropa: Why did you decide to make a film in and about Guria?
Levan Koguashvili: I generally like to shoot in the provinces, as it feels more relaxed and interesting, and the people are more open. Guria is in western Georgia, and I grew up in that part of the country, so I know it fairly well. It came to my mind after I bought a book called Gurian Diaries by Giorgi Kekelidze. The world he described was very poor, sometimes desperate, but at the same time, there was humanity, warmth and humour.

But there was no real story. I called Giorgi, and he suggested that we go to Guria together. That stage of my work on a film is almost like being a journalist: I meet people, interview them, take lots of photographs and videos on my phone, and try to get inside the world. Then I went to [screenwriter] Boris Fumin with all of my notes, and he wrote the script.

The structure of the story is pretty complex, and you throw us right into it, without any establishing introduction. This is similar to your earlier films.
A lot of it comes from Boris. He has a great respect for construction and structure. Here, it wasn't easy, because we had to combine several strands into one story, especially the line of the father and son. In a way, there are two different love stories rolled into one. You also need time to establish the environment, the place and the characters, so the general approach was to introduce the characters and setting through interesting cinematic scenes, rather than through explanation.

Why did you set it in the 1990s?
The first two drafts were actually set in contemporary Guria. Then, I met a man who had some very good stories about the 1990s – involving criminals, electricity shortages, many things like that. So, I decided to move it into the 1990s because it's more cinematic. It's crazier, there is no political correctness, and it gives you more liberty in terms of storytelling. The story became rougher, more alive and more interesting, somehow.

Is that also why you decided to shoot in black and white?
Partly, but it simply felt better visually. We actually began in colour. We wanted [the feeling of] late autumn, but in November, Guria was still very green – it is in the subtropical climate belt. Black and white gave the film another dimension. It became less strictly realistic, with a slight fairy-tale quality, and emotionally, it felt right. My references were neorealist works, like Ermanno Olmi and Otar Iosseliani. We didn't want highly stylised black and white; it had to remain realistic, but with what I would call a poetry of realism.

Your films are always tragicomic, but this one leans more towards comedy.
If you make a film about the 1990s in a Georgian province, people expect war, economic problems, and something terrible, dark and depressing. Suddenly, we tell a different kind of story. That was also a way of going against the cliché.

There is also something slightly otherworldly about the characters. They’re not quirky, necessarily, but they are very specific.
I think that's right. Our idea was that we like the characters, but we also realise that they're not perfect. They make many mistakes and they have emotions. They're capable of friendship, which was very important, as you don't see that much friendship on screen any more. We often see complicated or destructive relationships, but I wanted to show two men who are genuinely good friends, without glorifying it or making it simplistic.

How did you pick the actors? It's a mix of professionals and non-professionals.
I have experience working with non-professional actors: they bring authenticity and sincerity, which adds a lot to a scene, but there are limits to what you can ask them to do. With professional actors, you have more range and more flexibility. I love combining those qualities. Guria is full of very talented and very musical people. The main cast, Kakhaber Tcholadze, Natia Nikolaishvili and Vamekh Jangidze, are professional actors from the Tbilisi theatre scene, while others are local people from Guria.

Singing plays a major role in the film. The soundtrack is all vocal.
Rather than using conventional melodies or a more traditional score, we wanted a cappella voices – but not in a completely traditional way. Georgian music is polyphonic and can be very complicated, and the Gurian region is especially famous for this, but we chose a single voice because it felt more spiritual and intimate. A local composer, Giorgi Gordeladze, came up with several themes that I liked, and that's how we approached it. The basic concept was pure emotion.