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What We See: New Georgian Cinema

November 5–7, 2021
Quietly but unmistakably, the last few years have seen an array of superb Georgian films introduced on the international stage. Far too individuated to be forced into a simplified wave or movement, these films speak to an explosion of creative energy among emerging Georgian film artists. Formally and visually eclectic, they offer stories and characters and milieu rooted in the complexities and challenges of contemporary Georgian life. Fiction, nonfiction, realist, allegorical, playful, traumatic, the diversity explored in just the past three years alone is astonishing—and eminently worthy of a spotlight. In anticipation of the theatrical release of Alexandre Koberidze’s magnificent What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (November 12, courtesy of MUBI), Museum of the Moving Image presents a weekend survey of recent Georgian films, including Koberidze’s previous feature Let the Summer Never Come Again (First Look 2018), Tamar Shavgulidze’s visionary shapeshifter Comets (First Look 2020), Dea Kulumbegashvili’s bracing Beginning, two critically acclaimed and divergent documentaries, Taming the Garden and Dead Souls’ Vacation, and two knockout shorts by George Sikharulidze.