Ana Urushadze’s award-winning directorial debut may be headed to the Academy Awards. “Scary Mother” has been chosen to represent Georgia in the best foreign-language film category at the 2018 Oscars, The Hollywood Reporter confirms. The female-led psychological thriller took home honors at the Sarajevo Film Festival and the Locarno Film Festival.
“With years of domestic duty weighing heavily on her shoulders in a drab Tbilisi apartment block, Manana (Nato Murvanidze) is quietly going crazy,” THR says of “Scary Mother’s” plot. “Her only escape is to work on a darkly erotic thriller, the contents of which she keeps from her somewhat contemptuous husband, Anri (Dimitri Tatishvili). When Manana lets Anri read an excerpt from her book, his latent fears that his wife is slipping from the comfort zone in which he keeps her explode.”
Urushadze, who also penned the script for “Scary Mother,” is the second woman director to have her work submitted in this category by Georgia. The country previously selected two films directed by Nana Jorjadze, “A Chef in Love” and “27 Missing Kisses,” and one she co-directed, “In Bloom.”
Other women-helmed features that have been submitted for consideration in the upcoming foreign-language race include Petra Volpe’s women’s rights drama “The Divine Order” and Annemarie Jacir’s “Wajib,” a dramedy about a father and his estranged son.
Last year Maren Ade’s “Toni Erdmann” was the sole film directed by a woman to score a nomination in the foreign-language category.
