New Delhi, Jan 7 (PTI) Director Alexandre Koberidze says in “What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?” he has tried to train his lens on the Georgian riverside city of Kutaisi that both exists and doesn’t in his second film.
Billed as a modern-day fairytale, the acclaimed film follows pharmacist Lisa and soccer player Giorgi who fall for each other after a pair of chance encounters.
They arrange a date, but fate has other plans in store: they both awaken the day of their rendezvous magically transformed – with no way to recognise or contact each other. As the would-be couple tries to reunite, their eyes are opened to a whole new world, with surprises awaiting them at every cafe, courtyard and cinema.
In an interview with PTI, Koberidze said he and his brother stayed in Kutaisi for almost a year before they started shooting.
It’s perhaps this understated lived-in feel that flows throughout the 150 minute-long run time of the Georgian language film.
After setting his debut directorial venture “Let the Summer Never Come Again” (2017) which navigates the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, the filmmaker wanted to make a film that was set in one place.
“I also knew I won’t have a lot of money so I thought maybe I’ll have to go for a simple hall and somehow stay at one place. But still discover this place and see what’s happening there. I wanted to keep it simple, not move so much. I started to write but everything changed when I went to Kutaisi,” Koberidze, who also serves as writer, editor and narrator in the film, said.
The first day when they were just walking around the city, he and his brother bumped into a music school that features in the film.
They kept coming across more such unique gems across Kutaisi and soon the 34-year-old Georgian director thought “it was silly to follow a concept and not to do things you want”.
“I was often changing the script according to new things more or less the city was offering. It was like an everyday tradition that we would go out. It’s not just looking for a location but somehow trying to understand the place and meet some people.” That’s how he tried to capture what Kutaisi was presenting to him, all the time viewing it from his perspective as an independent filmmaker.
“(The film is) More or less my wish how not just this town but also the surroundings where I stay could be. On the other hand, there are not so many things that we arranged. It’s more like the angle from which we looked at some things.” Shots of children, dogs and football dominate the trailer of the film. Koberidze said some things were planned, some weren’t.
“We said we wanted to shoot something, let’s see who comes. It was who was there and we just didn’t say no. There were things that we planned. The shots with kids and the town, most of the things were there.
“It’s just that sometimes you show some things, sometimes you don’t. A good friend from Kutaisi who watched the film said he was a bit sad because it’s not the city he lives in but a city he would (want to) live in,” he added.
Before Lisa and Giorgi transform into two different people, Koberidze urges the audience to surrender to the magic that will unfold on the screen in a countdown of three seconds.
But it doesn’t matter if the viewers don’t close their eyes, he said.
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t close your eyes, it still gets dark (on the screen). There are many elements in the film where you play along or don’t. It’s your choice. For example, when the voice-over says they fall in love… Either you believe it or you don’t.” “What Do We See…” primarily follows Lisa and Giorgi, but the director uses their budding romance to spin many stories of people, time, place, and even things in and around Kutaisi.
It was more about creating a mood, rather than going in too deep, he said about the film, which will stream on MUBI in India from Friday.
“What is important in this case is the way we tried to handle these small stories or characters that have smaller parts. That’s where this impression comes that everyone and everything is equally important. It was interesting to see so many small stories make one big thing.” When he first started thinking about the form of the film, Koberidze said one of the main ideas was to make a kind of a silent film in the modern era.
“It was clear that sometimes the characters will talk, but we won’t hear them. We will also use a lot of music but it’s also about storyboarding, framing and editing,” he added.
Koberidze, who made his first film — a short — at the age of 20, didn’t even think about making films while growing up.
“It was more like I was not thinking about anything. You are a teenager, you don’t know what you want. Just maybe go out and play football.” After finishing school if one doesn’t study further they had to enlist in the military in Georgia, he added.
“I was 23 when I went to Germany to study production in film school. I was 25 when I decided to direct films. The film school helped me make this change. Then somehow it felt right,” the filmmaker, who studied at the German Film And Television Academy Berlin, said.
Starring Giorgi Bochorishvili, Ani Karseladze, Oliko Barbakadze, Giorgi Ambroladze and Vakhtang Fanchulidze, “What Do We See…” is a Germany and Georgia co-production that was screened at 2021’s Berlinale and New York Film Festival. PTI RDS BK BK
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.