Felicità and more

Felicità

2009. Georgia. Directed by Salomé Alexi. With Marina Kobakhidze (voiceover), Gia Abesalashvili, Rusudan Bolkvadze, Paata Guliashvili. Deadpan, hilarious, and filled with subtle character schtick, Felicità is a pure delight. The central character is absent, heard only on speakerphone at her husband’s funeral. In this, her fourth short film, Salomé Alexi (the granddaughter of Noutsa Gogoberidze) takes a regular societal occurrence—women who support their families by working abroad—and mines it for dramatic effect. In Georgian; English subtitles. 30 min.

Buba

1930. USSR. Directed by Noutsa Gogoberidze. Long suppressed and nearly written out of film history, Buba is an exceptional documentary filmed in the northern reaches of Georgia, in the remote mountainous region of Racha. This artistic collaboration between Georgia’s first female director, Noutsa Gogoberidze, and the noted avant-garde painter David Kakabadze—a work of exhilarating cinematic splendor featuring luminous cinematography and dynamic montage—was originally intended as propaganda; Gogoberidze was closely associated with filmmakers Alexander Dovzhenko, Sergei Eisenstein, and Mikhail Kalatozov. Silent; Russian intertitles, English subtitles. 39 min.