Cleaning up at the San Sebastian Film Festival was just the beginning for Dea Kulumbegashvili’s latest. “Beginning” has been named as Georgia’s submission for the 2021 Academy Awards’ Best International Feature prize. A press release confirmed the news.

Co-written by Kulumbegashvili, the drama is set in remote rural Georgia and follows the aftermath of an extremist attack on a community of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ place of worship. Ia Sukhitashvili stars as a missionary determined to seek justice for the crime.

“Beginning” scored four of the jury’s seven competition prizes at San Sebastian: the Golden Shell for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actress for Sukhitashvili.

The pic, which marks Kulumbegashvili’s feature debut, also took home Toronto’s FIPRESCI award.

Ana Urushadze’s “Scary Mother” was the last woman-directed feature submitted by Georgia at the Oscars. It was in consideration for the 2017 Academy Awards. Other films in the running for next year’s Best International Feature honor include Malgorzata Szumowska’s “Never Gonna Snow Again” and Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond’s “My Little Sister.” The former is a portrait of a Ukrainian migrant working as a masseur in Poland and the latter is a drama about twin sisters, one of whom is seriously ill.