Yana Ugrekhelidze

Yana Ugrekhelidze is a Georgian director who emerges in contemporary cinema with a singular vision and narrative practice akin to visual expressionism. Her work is characterized by attention to social margins, figures of exclusion, and daily survival rituals. Instructions for Survival represents a conscious investigation of human fragility and the strategies of resistance that characterize life in vulnerable communities. Ugrekhelidze constructs her cinema through ethnographic observation, evocative photography, and sensitivity to documentary detail that does not renounce aesthetic force. Her directorial practice testifies to the importance of giving voice to those who remain at the margins of dominant representation. Her visual style combines formal harshness with profound compassion, creating works that challenge spectators to confront often-hidden realities. Ugrekhelidze represents a new generation of filmmakers from the Caucasus and former Soviet space, capable of synthesizing local traditions with contemporary cinematic languages, generating forms of political and human cinema.