Dissertation Pathway - Film Producing for Natia is a dissertation theory-practice report on the theoretical ideas that have both informed dissertation project and the theoretical issues that have arisen during the project development.

1. MDA3200 Film Theory
Dissertation Theory-Practice Report
Chandra Khan
Dissertation Theory – Practice Report
Dissertation Pathway: Film Producing
Project Title: Natia
For my dissertation project I have chosen the film producing pathway to further craft my skill as a
producer. The film theories that are principal of Natia is realism and feminism and I will analyse and
discuss why that is so and how it has developed into the shape Natia has taken now and issues
encountered along the way when making creative choices on the path the script has taken root. I have
chosen these film theories purely due to its importance to our script and I will explain further on the
significance of these film theories, however for brief introduction, I will explain realism is due to the
country’s historical and cultural context and feminism because female characters are predominantly
significant in our story despite the society’s oppression of women.
The conception of Natia originated when my screenwriter who is also the director of Natia, Anna
Parcerisas, visited Georgia last year. When she arrived, the senses were aroused, the beautiful scenery
and destructions of old buildings spoke an eerie reminder that we all have a story to tell and that we
must do so with the best of our ability. She spoke to many natives of the land and heard of many
issues they had been experiencing from lack of jobs to government corruption, but only one issue
stroked a chord and it was a subject matter of bride kidnapping. Bride kidnapping is embroiled in the
fabric of Georgian culture; it is a rite of passage for any man to force the opposite sex into marriage,
and it is accepted by the people and the government, it is a way of life there. The government has
given men the licence to force women into marriages they do not consent to for decades and only just
recently it has been revoked in the capital city of Georgia, Tbilisi. However, it is not the case in many
other parts of Georgia and still occurs occasionally, it is a daily reminder that women have no rights
or freedom of speech and this story was a way to show this ‘dark’ side of Georgian culture, while
expressing a story of a women with an internal conflict towards her country when she witnesses bride

2. MDA3200 Film Theory
Dissertation Theory-Practice Report
Chandra Khan
kidnapping for the first time.
My short drama film, Natia, is based on a fictional story of a 25-year-old woman named Natia, who
after the death of her grandfather, goes back to Georgia after 12 years of living in Spain to see her
grandmother, Natela. An encounter with her old childhood friend Otto and the discovery of the
distinctive traditions, religion and culture of her birth country will challenge everything Natia had been
taught to believe. Natia sparks a story, which unravels an intense internal conflict that portrays and
characterises the situation in Georgia. This is the story we want to portray and it takes place in Georgia,
we want to deal with the serious issue of bride kidnapping and thus made it the very core of our story.
This issue is projected through the tale of Natia, who enters her birth country with foreign eyes and
takes us on a journey where we discover this ‘issue’ which is in fact not an issue in Georgia, it is a way
of life and we want to convey that through Natia’s story.
Natia is patriotic and loves her country deeply even though she hasn’t returned since she was a child.
She believes in everything she been taught while growing up as a child in Georgia by her parents and
grandparents, and when she witnesses her old close childhood friend being kidnapped right before
her eyes, she questions the society and everything she’s been taught to believe in. Women are
marginalised within the society and we want to demonstrate this reality through the character of
Natia, but how do go about and show this ‘reality’ when already making a film about it makes it unreal,
and “realism is not reality” (Metz, 1974, p.21), therefore we have to construct a level of realism
everyone will believe and create an impact that we are trying to produce with our film.
I should note that Natia’s grandmother, Natela, was a victim of bride kidnapping and that her
grandfather whom she adores is in fact the one who kidnapped her grandmother, and originally
the story in the early stages of our script was about Natia trying to out what her mother, Mariam
and Natela were hiding from her after arriving in Georgia. In the early stages, the core of the
story was Natia’s determination to search for the truth after she suspects her family is hiding

3. MDA3200 Film Theory
Dissertation Theory-Practice Report
Chandra Khan
something from her when she enquires about her grandparents lives and how they met and fell
in love. She idolises her grandfather and has fond memories of ‘teachings’ he taught her about
life, so when she discovers this shocking news she becomes conflicted within herself and of
her country. The script core story changed from the original one because the story of her finding
out her grandmother was a victim of bride kidnapping was coming from a filmmaker with a
point of a view of a foreign perceptive, meaning that we needed an ‘authentic’ feel to this
subject and her finding out this shocking news will make it unrealistic. So although we kept
the story of her grandmother being a victim of bride kidnapping, we changed the story where
she longer seeks for truth her family is hiding from her to one where she encounters a close
childhood friend and witnesses the effects of bride kidnapping has when her friend becomes a
victim of bride kidnapping, and how she is conflicted with how she feels towards her country
and Georgian heritage.
With this in mind “to film something is to immediately make it unreal- you choose the angles, the sets,
the actors, the plot, the dialogue-everything is a construction. The question is not to what extent is
this real? No film ever is, but rather, to what extent does this film recall reality? To what extent does
it portray life as it is lived? How has the filmmaker chosen to represent reality?” (MDA3200, Week 2,
Realism, Slide 3, L. Thompson, 2016), we can represent a reality that to an extent portrays a life of
woman who falls victim of bride kidnapping and how the central character, Natia, begins to see her
country in a different light since she grew up elsewhere but was taught by her grandfather during her
childhood of the importance of Georgian heritage.
Another key element of our story is ingrained with feminist theory, feminism to me is simply equality
among both sexes and Laura Mulvey is cited for her essay work on Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema
(1976) and Afterthought on Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema (1981). She focuses her arguments on
how cinema and film itself takes on the ‘male gaze’, which essentially means that it is a form where

4. MDA3200 Film Theory
Dissertation Theory-Practice Report
Chandra Khan
women and their surroundings are represented from a masculine point of view. Females are
effectively seen as possessions and properties of male pleasure. In her essay she combines
Psychoanalytic Theory which defines personality is shaped by conflicts with three crucial structures of
the human mind, the id, ego and superego and ties Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis within
her discussion, stating that the ‘male gaze’ is a device of control in film and used frequently to evoke
pleasure of looking and in turn the pleasure of cinema-going.
Mulvey explains in her essay with the aid of Psychoanalytic Theory, how woman are often places on
screen and argues phallocentrism, which is a belief that male sex is superior to the female sex, is often
used in classic narrative Hollywood cinema. But Mulvey treats everyone as a layman of the cinema
and she argues on the Afterthought on Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema later on in response
to her previous text after thoughts on Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema and uses Duel of the
Sun, King Vidor, 1946 as an example, where she focused on how it has a strong female
character who is dealing with a story that would often depict men in the main role lead.
Although women are marginalised in Georgia and are depicted as that within our film when
they are fall victims of bride kidnapping, we wanted to tell a story with strong female leads
and portrays a story of a woman who is conflicted with herself when she takes this life-
changing journey in Georgia, and she and other females in our film will not be treated with
the ‘male gaze’, but with sensitive approach as a way to convey our film.
In conclusion, for my dissertation film and film producing pathway has given me an insight in
understanding the importance of film theories in relation to our film and informed me on the
filmmaking methods and approaches that are vital to take while in development of any film
and I believe it has greatly influenced our story and will create an even bigger impact on our
final film.

5. MDA3200 Film Theory
Dissertation Theory-Practice Report
Chandra Khan
Bibliography
Etherington-Wright, C and Doughty, R. 2011. Understanding Film Theory: Theoretical
and Critical Perspectives. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Metz C., 1974, Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema, New York: Oxford University Press