Farewell, Home Sweet Home!
Otar Iosseliani has passed away – let’s raise a glass to his memory.
The great Georgian filmmaker left us at the end of last year. This year, he would have turned 90.
“Farewell, Home Sweet Home” is one of Iosseliani’s wittiest comedies and has been hailed as his best work of recent times.
A good film is a film without words, Iosseliani used to say. Not too many words are spoken in this film either.
An aristocratic family lives a double life in a stately castle. The drunkard father – played by Iosseliani himself – who dances to the tune of the business-minded mother, and his adventurous son, who hangs out with tramps, are both rebellious against the values of the bourgeois society, desiring to abandon their birth status and etiquette. Their paths intersect in humorous, sometimes absurd ways with many colourful Parisians.
The mosaic ensemble cast film won critical acclaim at the European Film Awards in 1999.
Tiit Tuumalu
Otar Iosseliani (1934–2023) studied music at the Thbilisi Conservatoire, mathematics in Moscow, and then film direction at Moscow’s VGIK from 1956 to 1961. His debut film, “April” (1961), was immediately banned by the censors. Since the 1980s, Iosseliani lived mainly in France and made most of his films there. His 1999 film “Adieu, plancher des vaches!” won the Estonian Critics’ Prize at PÖFF. His 13th feature film “Winter Song” has also been screened in the PÖFF programme.
Giorgobistve (Langevad lehed, 1968), Igo šašvi mgalobeli (Elas kord laululind, 1969), Pastorali (Pastoraal, 1975), Les Favoris de la lune (Kuu lemmikud, 1984), La chasse aux papillons (Liblikajaht, 1992), Brigands, chaptire VII (Maanteeröövlid 1996, PÖFF 1998), Adieu, plancher des vaches! (Hüvasti, kallis kodu, PÖFF 1999), Lundi matin (Esmaspäeva hommik, PÖFF 2002), Jardins en automne (2006), Chantrapas (PÖFF 2010), Chant d'hiver (Talvelaul, PÖFF 2015)