The silent film My Grandmother offers scathing satire.
The nation of Georgia may be small, but it is uncommonly diverse topographically and rich in cinematic tradition. As such, Discovering Georgian Cinema, a touring retrospective screening at TIFF Bell Lightbox (May 8 to 19), showcases unique depth and variety.
The program covers three periods of filmmaking: The silent era, the narrative cinema of the sixties to the eighties and the new wave of contemporary Georgian films.
Highlights include My Grandmother, an impudent pre-talkie that is not silent in its anti-bureaucratic satire; Molba, Tengiz Abuladze's historical 1967 epic, which censoring, foot-dragging Soviet authorities delayed for a decade; and The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear, a sobering 2012 documentary about drab, modern-day Georgia where morale is so low that one citizen wished there was a machine that could make her disappear. No doubt Putin is working on just such a thing.