Trivia

Retrospective at the 49th Donostia-San Sebastián Film Festival. (2001)

Retrospective at the 5th Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema. (2003)

President of the jury at the entrance examination of La Fémis (France's national film school) in 2000.

Member of the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival 1986

He is a French citizen living in Paris since 1982.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union he continued to work in France where he made the documentary Seule Georgie (1994) which was followed by the sardonic and allegorical Brigands - Chapitre VII (1996).

Since 1956, Otar Ioseliani has been working as an assistant director at the "Georgian Film" film studio; 1956-1959 as an installer; 1959-1961 as a director of documentary films.

In 1953 he left for Moscow, where he studied for two years at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow State University, but in two years he quit and entered the State Film Institute (VGIK) where his teachers were Alexander Dovzhenko and Mikhail Chiaureli.

Since 1984, he lived in France, where he emigrated due to problems with Soviet censorship.

In 1995 he was a member of the jury at the 19th Moscow International Film Festival.

While still a student, he began working at the Gruziafilm studios in Tbilisi, first as an assistant director and then as an editor of documentaries.

In 1989 he received a Special Jury Prize for "Et la Lumiere Fut".

In 2011 his film Chantrapas was selected as the Georgian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist.

In 2011 Otar Iosseliani received a lifetime achievement honor - the CineMerit Award at the Munich International Film Festival. It was given by his former pupil, a Georgian filmmaker Dito Tsintsadze.

In 1952 he graduated from Tbilisi Conservatory with composition, conducting and piano departments.

He was awarded in 1992 with the Pasinetti Award for Best Direction for "La Chasse aux Papillons".

He received for his film "Giorgobistve" the Fipress and Georges Sadoul awards for the best debut work at the Cannes Film Festival.

When his 1976 film Pastorali was shelved for a few years and then granted only a limited distribution, Iosseliani grew sceptical about getting any artistic freedom in his homeland.

In 1961 he graduated from the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography, where Aleksandr Dovzhenkosa and was a student of Mikheil Chiaureli.

In 1958 he directed his first short film "Akvarel".

In 1986 he was a member of the jury at the 36th Berlin International Film Festival.

In 1964 he made a documentary film "Cast iron", in which he described one day of work at the metallurgical combine. Already in this film, the original style of the director appeared, which was evident in his first full-length film "Giorgobistve" (1966).

In the 1970s and 1980s, he gave a course of lectures on "The Craft of a Film Director" in screenwriting and "Filmmaking" in directing. He lectured also higher courses for screenwriters and directors departments.

Followingthe success of hi s movie " Pastorali'" at the 1982 Berlin Film Festival, the director moved to France where in 1984 he made "Les Favoris de la Lune". The film was distinguished with a Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival. Since then Venice became a showcase for all his subsequent films.

In 1961 he graduated from VGIK with a diploma in film direction. When his medium-length film Aprili (1961) was denied theatrical distribution, Iosseliani abandoned filmmaking and in 1963-1965 worked first as a sailor on a fishing boat and then at the Rustavi metallurgical factory. Aprili was finally released only in 1972.