Earlier this spring, filmmaker and CalArts student Tato Giligashvili (Film/Video MFA 25) was awarded Best Creative Documentary for “A Very Happy Woman” (2021) at the 2023 Women’s Voices Now Film Festival Award.
Established in 2011, Women’s Voice Now Film Festival is an online film festival recognizing women’s rights documentary films by emerging filmmakers from around the globe. This year, seven films were selected to receive cash prizes ranging from $1,000 to $3,500 dollars.
Giligashvili’s 35-minute film, which she directed, written, and produced, is based on her family history shaped by the “disturbing centuries-old” Georgian tradition of marriage by kidnapping and abduction. “A Very Happy Woman” was created as Giligashvili’s BFA thesis while at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont, and has since screened as part of the 2022 Poppy Jasper International Film Festival in Morgan Hill, California, and filmzeit in Allgäu, Germany.
See the full list of 2023 winning films at Women’s Voices Now’s official announcement.
