Dea Kulumbegashvili’s Venice prize-winning second feature April to be released by the BFI

Dea Kulumbegashvili’s highly anticipated latest film April will be released in cinemas across the UK and Ireland on Friday 25 April 2025 by BFI Distribution.

Kulumbegashvili’s second feature, a singular drama unfolding in rural Georgia, premiered in competition at the 2024 Venice Film Festival where it earned the Special Jury Prize. Its UK premiere followed at the BFI London Film Festival in Official Competition, with additional screenings at Toronto, New York, San Sebastián and Sundance film festivals.

April is produced by Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name, Challengers), alongside Ilan Amouyal, David Zerat, Francesco Melzi D’Eril, Archil Gelovani, Gabriele Moratti, and Alexandra Rossi. The film reunites Kulumbegashvili with key collaborators from her debut feature Beginning (2020), including award-winning actors Ia Sukhitashvili and Kakha Kintsurashvili, as well as Merab Ninidze. Renowned cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan (Bones and All) and British experimental composer Matthew Herbert (The Wonder, Starve Acre) bring their distinctive talents to the film.

Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili) is a skilled obstetrician at a maternity hospital in eastern Georgia. After a tragedy strikes in the delivery room, the grief-stricken father demands an inquiry into her methods. The resulting scrutiny threatens to bring to light Nina’s other, secret job – driving, through the stunningly beautiful countryside, to the village homes of pregnant girls and women to provide unsanctioned abortions – and to destroy the work that is the only source of meaning in her life.

Kulumbegashvili is an acclaimed Georgian filmmaker whose body of work continues to redefine contemporary cinema. Her debut short film Invisible Spaces was a Palme d’Or du Court Métrage nominee at Cannes 2014, marking the first time independent Georgia competed in the festival’s Official Selection. Her follow-up short Léthé premiered at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2016. Kulumbegashvili’s first feature, Beginning, achieved a historic sweep at the San Sebastián Film Festival 2020, winning Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actress for Ia Sukhitashvili.

April is produced by Frenesy Film, First Picture, Memo Films, and the Independent Film Project, with co-production by ARTE France Cinéma.