Déa Kulumbegashvili is a Georgian film director and writer. She is known for her 2020 film Beginning, which won and was nominated for numerous awards. Kulumbegashvili was born in Oriol, Russia (Oryol), and raised in a small town called Lagodekhi at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia. Her filmmaking has been informed by her experience of growing up in a place with such a mix of ethnicities and nationalities. Her second short film, Lethe, premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival in 2016. Both films were shown at MoMA in New York and also at many other film festivals.