Ciné Lumière From April 21st 2024 A Season Of Four Classic Films
Falling Leaves 1966
Falling Leaves Giorgobistve | 1966 | 91 mins | Ramaz Giorgobiani, Gogi Kharabadze, Marina Kartsivadzew | Georgian French Russian (Eng subtitles) | Soviet Union
Iosseliani’s first full-length feature was screened at the International Critics’ Week of the 1968 Cannes Film Festival. A young idealist starts working in a state-run winery and soon gets caught up in the bureaucratic world of Soviet corruption. The film shows his characteristic style of capturing “moments of passing life”. His anti-authoritarian approach is shown by the lead character not having a moustache, the Georgian symbol of respectability and manhood.
21 April 2024 2.00pm Introduced by Natalia Jugheli
23 April 2024 8.20pm
26 April 2024 3.45pm
Farewell, Home Sweet Home 1999
Farewell, Home Sweet Home Adieu, plancher des vaches! | 1999 | 118 mins | Niko Tarielashivli, Lily Lavina, Otar Iosseliani | French (Eng Subtitles) | France
The 1999 absurdist comedy Farewell, Home Sweet Home, was screened out of competition in the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, picking up a Fipresci prize at the European Film Awards in the same year. Nicholas lives with his wealthy suburban Parisian family, all leading double lives in secret. His businesswoman mother is having an affair with her business partner and makes deals from a helicopter, whilst his happy-go-lucky, alcoholic father (played by Iosseliani) spends his time in his room with his dog and electric train set. Nicholas works as a window cleaner and a dish washer in a Parisian café and befriends some unsuitable characters. One night, Nicholas sneaks a few of his new friends into the family wine cellar and his father unexpectedly strikes up a friendship with one of them. 28 April 2024 2.00pm Introduced by Maryam d'Abo 1 May 2024 6.00pm 3 May 2024 3.30pm
The 1999 absurdist comedy Farewell, Home Sweet Home, was screened out of competition in the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, picking up a Fipresci prize at the European Film Awards in the same year. Nicholas lives with his wealthy suburban Parisian family, all leading double lives in secret. His businesswoman mother is having an affair with her business partner and makes deals from a helicopter, whilst his happy-go-lucky, alcoholic father (played by Iosseliani) spends his time in his room with his dog and electric train set. Nicholas works as a window cleaner and a dish washer in a Parisian café and befriends some unsuitable characters. One night, Nicholas sneaks a few of his new friends into the family wine cellar and his father unexpectedly strikes up a friendship with one of them. 28 April 2024 2.00pm Introduced by Maryam d'Abo 1 May 2024 6.00pm 3 May 2024 3.30pm
Once Upon A Time There Was A Singing Blackbird 1970
Once Upon a Time There Was a Singing Blackbird Iko shashvi mgalobeli | 1970 | 85 mins | Gela Kandelaki, Gogi Chkeidze, Irine Jandieri | Georgian (Eng subtitles) | Soviet Union
The film is mockingly named after a Georgian fairy tale, and depicts 36 hours in the life of a young musician, who plays the timpani in the Tbilisi orchestra. The world of this hedonistic composer is masterfully created with magical sequences of sound, silence and music (radio’s playing, clocks ticking or groups singing Georgian polyphonic songs).
Shown at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival Directors’ Fortnight, this is one of Iosseliani’s most poetic films.
12 May 2024 2.00pm Introduced by Nino Kirtadze
14 May 2024 6.30pm
16 May 2024 4.00pm
Gardens In Autumn 2006
Gardens In Autumn Jardins en automne | 2006 | 115 mins | Séverin Blanchet, Jacynthe Jacquet, Michel Piccoli | French (Eng subtitles) | France
A powerful government minister (Séverin Blanchet) unexpectedly losses his job and all the privileges of power. He is dropped by his mistress and leaves his overbearing mother (played brilliantly in drag by Michel Piccoli) to take up a bohemian existence. This beautifully nuanced tale of self-liberation from a corrupt bourgeoisie society takes you to the heart of the world of Otar Iosseliani. After the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 Georgia was thrown into a deeply destructive civil war and Iosseliani continued to live and work in France, making 6 major films including Gardens In Autumn in 2006. He shot part of his 1996 film Brigands Chapter VII in Georgia, but it wasn’t until 2010 that Iosseliani returned to his native Georgia to make Chantrapas. 12 May 2024 4.15pm Introduction and Q&A Nino Kirtadze
A powerful government minister (Séverin Blanchet) unexpectedly losses his job and all the privileges of power. He is dropped by his mistress and leaves his overbearing mother (played brilliantly in drag by Michel Piccoli) to take up a bohemian existence. This beautifully nuanced tale of self-liberation from a corrupt bourgeoisie society takes you to the heart of the world of Otar Iosseliani. After the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 Georgia was thrown into a deeply destructive civil war and Iosseliani continued to live and work in France, making 6 major films including Gardens In Autumn in 2006. He shot part of his 1996 film Brigands Chapter VII in Georgia, but it wasn’t until 2010 that Iosseliani returned to his native Georgia to make Chantrapas. 12 May 2024 4.15pm Introduction and Q&A Nino Kirtadze
Natalia Jugheli Sunday 21 April
Natalia Jugheli is an actress based between Tbilisi and London. Her debut performance in ‘Antigone’ gained her acclaim, and the play toured several countries. She went on to take parts in award-winning films. She comes from a family of filmmakers who were pioneers of Georgian cinema, and they also share ties with Otar Iosseliani as Eldar and Giorgi Shengelaia were close friends and colleagues. Otar was an ally of Eldar Shengelaia – Natalia’s grandfather – in establishing the Georgian National Film Center. Natalia is a member of the Georgian Film Institute and a founder of the Nato Vachnadze Foundation, which aims to support Georgian filmmakers.
Maryam d'Abo Sunday 28 April
Maryam is best known for her role as Kara Milovy in the Bond film The Living Daylights (1987), and has acted extensively for film, theatre, and TV. She produced the documentary Bond Girls in 2002 and the sequel in 2006. She wrote and co-produced the documentary film Bearing Witness (2004), about five female war reporters. In 2011 she made Rupture: A Matter Of Life and Death with her husband Hugh Hudson for the BBC, a documentary based on her personal experience of a brain aneurysm. Her grandfather Giorgi Kvinitadze, a famous Georgian general, had migrated to France in 1921 and Maryam went with her mother to live in Paris with her Georgian family in the 1960s. Her mother was a great friend of Iosseliani, and Maryam first met him as a teenager.
Nino Kirtadze (with Otar Iosseliani) Sunday 12 May
Nino is a Georgian-born French journalist, actress and film director who has lived in France since 1997. She starred in Nana Jorjadze’s OSCAR nominated film A Chef in Love (1996). Her own documentary feature films have received international acclaim and won numerous prizes including the European Film Academy Best Documentary Prize for Pipeline Next Door (2005), and the World Cinema Best Director Prize at Sundance, for Durakovo – Village of Fools (2008). She is also a founder and leading member of the Georgian Film Institute (GFI), recently formed in reaction to the Georgian Ministry of Culture’s overtly political appointment of the first non-filmmaker to the head of the Georgian National Film Centre. Nino was a close friend of Otar Iosseliani.