Mother and Daughter, or the Night Is Never Complete
What a life, what a fate – the tragic story of Georgia's first woman director, Nutsa Gogoberidze.
This is a tender and heartfelt tribute to her mother by the renowned Georgian filmmaker Lana Gogoberidze, who reveals all her pain and joy, but also her profound wisdom, her poetic dignity, her belief that darkness is never complete, as Paul Éluard writes.
Her father Levan was shot during the Great Terror, and her mother Nutsa, whose 1934 film “Uzhmuri” was the first feature film directed by a woman in the entire Soviet Union, was sent to Siberia as the wife of an enemy of the people. By the time she returned, Lana was already an adult. Her mother never told her about her films, they were banned and disappeared immediately after her deportation. Her daughter only found them half a century later, when Nutsa was long dead.
Now she is giving her mother, whose life mirrors the great cataclysms of 20th century history, back her place in film history and showing how invisible connections affect us more than we know – the heroes of many of Lana’s films are also strong women, courageous in the face of their fate.
But that's not all: Lana’s daughter, Salomé Alexi, has also followed in Nutsa’s footsteps, bringing together three generations of female directors – a unique phenomenon anywhere in the world!
Attention!!! The screening will be introduced by 96-year-old Lana Gogoberidze herself!
Tiit Tuumalu
You can read more about the Georgian special programme here - https://poff.ee/en/news/flowers-are-not-silent/
Lana Gogoberidze (1928) is one of Georgia's best-known film directors. Her mother Nutsa was the first Georgian and one of the first Soviet women directors. Her parents were repressed in 1937. She studied English and American literature at the Tbilisi University and film directing at the All-Union Film Institute. “Some Interviews on Personal Matters” won the top prize at the 1979 San Remo Film Festival and was voted the best feature film in the Soviet Union. “Day Is Longer Than Night” was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. The same year, Gogoberidze was on the jury of the Berlin Film Festival. In 1988, she was elected President of the International Association of Women Directors. She has been a member of the Georgian Parliament and Ambassador of Georgia to France. Her daughter Salome Alexi is also a filmmaker.
Me vkhedav mzes (Ma näen päikest, 1965), Rotsa akvavada nushi (Kui mandlipuud õitsevad, 1972), Ramdenime interwiu pirad sakitchebse (Mõned intervjuud isiklikes asjus, 1978), Dges game utenebia (Päev on pikem ööst, 1984), Oromtriali (Ringiratast, 1986), Walsi petschorase (Valss Petšoral, 1992), Deda-shvili an rame ar aris arasodes bolomde bneli (Ema ja tütar ehk Pimedus pole kunagi täielik, 2023)