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The jump from cinematographer to director doesn’t happen so often. Barry Sonnenfeld, Jan de Bont, Ernest Dickerson––an attractive list, if a short one. The latest to join their rank is Tato Kotetishvili, the Georgian Dp behind Uta Beria’s Negative Numbers and Levan Koguashvili’s Blind Dates, now on directing duty with Holy Electricity. The film, part city symphony, part docudrama, offers plenty of style and finds substance in unusual places. Results are compelling, if a little mixed.

It’s a film of real people in somewhat-unreal scenarios, built from precisely composed shots that are often medium, static, and doused with generous color and blunt irony. Take the opening: a shot of a family gathered around an open casket that cuts suddenly to a busted-up car in a scrap yard moments before it’s flattened by a slab of concrete. In the yard, Kotetishvili introduces his low-key, quixotic...

With a background in photography and cinematography, Tato Kotetishvili brings a keen visual eye to his feature directorial debut, Holy Electricity. Having honed his skills on productions like Negative Numbers, Kotetishvili takes the camera reins to share tales from his hometown of Tbilisi, Georgia.

At the story’s center are cousins Gonga and Bart. Still grappling with recent loss, the pair discovers promise in a chance finding—metal crosses primed for a new purpose. With neon lights in hand, their crucifix creations seem just what Tbilisi needs. And so their door-to-door business takes form, ushering them into an experiential tour of the city through its people.

Through static frames that immerse us in intimate scenes, Kotetishvili invites exploration of community on its peripheries. Among quirky residents and unfamiliar corners of Tblisi, fragments of meaning emerge. As Gonga and Bart’s bond balances wavering fortunes, their curiosity pulls focus from sales...

Georgian filmmaker Tato Kotetishvili, whose feature directorial debut, “Holy Electricity,” won the Golden Leopard in the Concorso Cineasti del Presente section at the recently wrapped Locarno Film Festival, is prepping his next film, a docufiction that follows a family trying to illegally enter the U.S. from across the Mexican border.

The director also released a trailer for his prize-winning debut, which plays this week in competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival. Variety has been given exclusive access below.

The untitled project from the cinematographer-turned-director traces the odyssey of a Georgian family trying to make it to America via an arduous, three-week journey across Latin America. The family’s first trip overseas, it will be seen through the eyes of a child “who is not really concerned with the problems of the past or the anxieties of the future,” said Kotetishvili.

The film, which reunites the director with producer Tekla Machavariani of Tbilisi-based Nushi Film,...