Help Me Attend FAMU in Prague - A One-Year Film Course

My name is Anka.

I’m a filmmaker from Georgia, transitioning from years of working in documentary and conceptual photography.

My debut mid-length film, ‘Temo Re’, with no budget, no crew, no institutional stamp of approval. It premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival, winning the Tiger Short Award, the KNF Critics’ Prize, and later the Critic’s Jury Award at Brive. Critics called it “a return to the roots of cinema,” “a tour de force of emotion and rhythm,” and my favourite “laugh-out funny yet deeply political.”

I have never studied cinema thought all l my life, I wanted to make films and did not have the courage to do so.

I spent all of my teenage years in a small, old cinema house in Tbilisi, where I was immersed in different stories, narratives, ideas, people, countries, and senses. I fell in love, felt pain, fascination, amazement, experienced dramas, humour, was seeking the truth, and was escaping from loneliness while looking at the screen. In a nutshell, cinema served as my remedy, and I lived in a den completely alone. I remember once there was a screening of a film by my favourite director, and after leaving the cinema, something was different, something had changed in me. I was walking differently, my steps were different… I was drawn to it with all my existence, but still, I did not have the audacity to start making it.

But in later years, when this urge to tell the stories that affected me in waking life and in my dream world became a burning, suffocating desire, I decided to let it out. This is how my first-ever film, Temo Re, saw the light.

Using only black-and-white stills.

And so the passion and vigor found a way to be released. It’s very loud and demanding.

Now I’m haunted by new stories and ideas that are at the threshold of my mind.

I’ve already started working on a new script, but in this case, I feel I lack the technical side of cinematography. I want to shoot it with my eyes and hands.

That’s why I applied and was accepted into the Cinematography Department at FAMU in Prague, one of Europe’s most respected film schools. A full-time, practice-based program.

For someone like me, from Georgia where experimental and auteur cinema barely survives this isn’t just an education. It’s a lifeline.

I’m raising €22,000 to cover the most esential cost-tuition fee.

If you believe in independent cinema that listens, resists, and remembers, please consider helping.

Let me walk you with different steps.

Every donation, every share, every word matters.

With gratitude,

Anka Gujabidze