Award: Best Screenplay Award – 6th edition of the Kobani International Film Festival 2025 “Here the Story Begins”

The film received the Best Screenplay Award for its subtle and deeply human dramatic construction, transforming a seemingly simple event into a layered reflection on aging, loneliness, invisibility, and the late desire for freedom through restrained writing, existential irony, and psychological precision.

Synopsis:

On a rainy day, 75-year-old art professor Berdia Lomsadze — almost forgotten by everyone and left with only two students attending his lectures — suddenly steals his neighbor’s motorcycle and disappears without explanation.

What initially appears to be an absurd or impulsive act slowly becomes a mirror reflecting an entire society; a society obsessed with observation, judgment, and the exaggeration of small stories in search of spectacle and meaning. As rumors and interpretations multiply, the film gradually dismantles the very idea of disappearance — not as a criminal mystery, but as a human need to escape the painful feeling of becoming invisible.

Drawing inspiration from existential literature and contemplative European cinema, the film echoes the spirit of Luigi Pirandello, where irony intertwines with sadness and absurdity merges with emotional isolation. Through quiet pacing, prolonged silences, and restrained performances, the film creates a delicate psychological portrait of aging, dignity, and the final attempt to reclaim one’s sense of self.

About the Directors and Screenwriters:

Irine Javakhidze studied film directing at the Georgian State University of Theatre and Cinema under renowned filmmaker Rezo Esadze. Throughout her career, she directed several short films screened at international festivals. In 2016, her project Selfie with the Gas Stove won the Best Short Film Project Award at the Tbilisi International Film Festival.

Shalva Shengeli is a Georgian filmmaker and writer whose work focuses on fragile human relationships, psychological isolation, and existential themes through a calm cinematic language inspired by European literary cinema.

In I Left, the directing duo crafts a cinematic experience built on minimal dialogue, everyday details, silence, and internal rhythm, creating a screenplay that balances bitter irony with profound human contemplation.