DOCA Initiative
@Tbilisi International Film Festival

DEC 5   16:00                                                                         Amirani 3
MARIUPOLIS 2
dir: Mantas Kvedaravičius
Lithuania/France/Germany 2022 112’ 

+ talk with the Head of Ukrainian Diplomatic Mission Andryi Kasyanov and Lithuanian Ambassador Andrius Kalindra, moderated by Chevening alumni Davit Doborjginidze


On April 2, 2022, Lithuanian filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravičius was arrested and killed by the Russian occupying forces in Donbas. His body and the footage he shot were recovered later. Kvedaravičius provides the world with a colossal and sensitive view of Ukrainians as they live in tragedy and hope as bombs rain down on and around them.

DEC 8   16:00                                                                         Amirani 3
WHEN THE PERSIMMONS GREW 
dir: Hilal Baydarov
Azerbaijan/Austria 2019 118’

+ Q&A with the filmmaker

Immobile in a home where the sands of time fall to the rhythm of rural Azerbaijani sounds, a mother waits for her son. When he arrives, their conversations circle around existential questions and news from afar, troubling and cryptic. Unrest cloaks the world outside. Mother and son grow closer, silence melts into words, and life springs between them.

DEC 9  19:00                                                                          Amirani 2

BON VOYAGE

dir: Garegin Papoyan

Armenia 2021 68’ 

+ Q&A with the filmmaker​

Fully equipped to accommodate civilian flights, recently rebuilt Stepanakert Airport in Karabakh does not operate due to the permanent threat of missile strikes. Stil, the airport remains “open”. Through wry observational scenes, Bon Voyage describes the absurd ironies of a not-so-ordinary community stuck in a political impasse, a kind of non-existence.

DEC 6   19:00                                                                         Amirani 3
FRAGMENTS OF PARADISE
dir: KD Davison
USA 2022 98’


Fragments Of Paradise assembles thousands of hours of Jonas Mekas’ personal footage, films, video diaries and letters to paint an intimate portrait of the life and career of the pioneering filmmaker, poet and critic who was born in Lithuania and moved to New York in the wake of World War II. The interviewees include Amy Taubin, Peter Bogdanovich, John Waters, Martin Scorsese, as well as Jonas’s children Sebastian and Oona Mekas. 

DEC 9   14:00                                              Goethe-Insitut Tbilisi

TALK:
WHERE ARE WE? WHO ARE WE? - DOCUMENTARY IN THE SOUTH CAUCASUS
 
Speakers:
Melik Karapetyan – Producer (Armenia)
Sona Kocharyan – Filmmaker (Armenia)
Lala Aliyeva – Filmmaker, Producer (Azerbaijan)
Levan Lomjaria – Georgian National Film Center (Georgia)
Moderated by Nino Orjonikidze

DEC 10   16:00                                                                       Amirani 2
MUSEUM OF THE REVOLUTION
dir: Srđan Keča
Serbia/Croatia/Czech Republic 2021 91’ 
 
+ Talk with public defender Nino Lomjaria and lawyer Anano Tsintsabadze, moderated by Chevening alumni Ketevan Vashagashvili

A derelict building envisioned as the Museum of the Revolution now tells a very different story. In the damp, pitch-dark building live the outcasts of a society reshaped by capitalism. The film focuses on a girl who earns a little cash on the street by cleaning car windows with her mother. The girl has a close friendship with an old woman who also lives in the basement. Against the background of a transforming city, the three women find refuge in each other.