Dito Tsintsadze

Dito Tsintsadze is a Georgian screenwriter and director who has lived and worked in Germany since 1996. In the 1970s he studied under Georgian legends Otar Iosseliani and Eldar Shengelaia in Tbilisi, eventually going on to work as an assistant director for the latter. His feature debut was the 1990 drama Guests. His 1993 film Zgvardze, about the civil war in Georgia following independence from the Soviet Union, won the Silver Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival. In 1996, Tsintsadze received a fellowship that allowed him to travel to Germany to work. His experiences informed his 2000 black comedy Lost Killers, about five migrants who spend their lives in the red-light district of Mannheim. The film won the main prize at FilmFestival Cottbus. For the film Gun-Shy (2003), about a young man who loses his grip on reality leading up to a murder, he received the Golden Shell, the highest honour at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. He has continued to work in Germany, although his most recent film, Shindisi (2019), returns to his native Georgia.