Some Interviews on Personal Matters
This is considered one of the first truly feminist films in the Soviet Union.
Lana Gogoberidze’s films often depict strong women who challenge fate and dare to defy predestination. Such is the case with “Some Interviews on Personal Matters”, her star work, at the same time funny and sad, made in 1978.
Sofiko works in the letters department of a newspaper. Her job, which she loves, is to listen to people and help solve their problems. But when her husband starts accusing her of dedicating herself to work instead of home, she is devastated.
The film deals with the lives of modern Georgian women without simplifying and stigmatising – it is more of a confession, a dialogue with oneself and the surrounding reality. Maia Turovskaya, one of the best experts on Russian film history and totalitarianism, called it the first true “women’s film” in the Soviet Union with good reason.
The film, which moves in a fascinating way between the present and the past, narrowly escaped being cut at the time because it also includes the story of Sofiko’s mother being sent to Gulag and returning from there, and the painful mark it left on Sofiko. Lana Gogoberidze has inserted her own past here, her mother also spent time in Siberia as the wife of an enemy of the people. “Maybe I started making films about women because of my mother,” is something the filmmaker herself suggested.
The film stars one of Georgia’s greatest actors, Sofiko Chiaureli, and features one of composer Giya Kancheli’s finest soundtracks.
Attention!!! The 96-year-old dazzling and energetic Lana Gogoberidze will be in Tallinn for the screening.
Tiit Tuumalu
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)