The Pipeline Next Door collected the Best Documentary gong at the European Film Awards. With masterly cinematography and a measured hand, The Pipeline Next Door tells a modern fable, a tragic-comic tale about a small village of Georgian farmers who are being threatened by a global player - oil organisation, BP. Adopting a verité approach, the result is a well-rounded, character-led drama in which no one, not even the oil executives, is simply a hero or villain. As the jury at the European Film Awards explained, “(Director Nino Kirtadzé) weaves a complex, very human tapestry of the villagers, their despair, weaknesses, greed, juxtaposing it with the large landscape cut open by the ever advancing dragon-like pipeline. The film treats the clash of cultures, the uneven battle between a global enterprise and the villagers with complexity, without black-and-white romanticism - it touches without stopping for sentimentality.” Kirtadzé herself describes the documentary as “a sort of human comedy with echoes of Chekhov and Fellini but it also sometimes recalls Wells' War of the Worlds.”

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D Nino Kirtadzé P Dominique Tibi WS Roche Productions L Georgian, Russian w/English subtitles TD video/2005/90mins Nino Kirtadzé was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1968. Her films include Les Trois vies d'Edouard Chevardnadze (2000, doco), Chechen Lullaby (2001, TV doco) and Dites à mes amis que je suis mort (2004, doco).