SSIFF+PLUS: FIRST STEPS (1)

1. Leta / Léthé, Dea Kulumbegashvili, Georgia-France, 2016, 15’
2. Ukhilavi sivrtseebi / Invisible Spaces, Dea Kulumbegashvili, Georgia, 2014, 10’
3. Metáfora ou a tristeza virada do avesso, Catarina Vasconcelos, Portugal-UK, 2013, 32'

Leta / Léthé, Dea Kulumbegashvili, Georgia-France, 2016, 15’

By the river of oblivion, a lonely horsemen passes through a village where children play with hidden desires, adults are indulged in a celebration and violence and love are instinctive parts of life.

Dea Kulumbegashvilik (Georgia, 1986) studied film directing at Columbia University, in New York. She has directed the short films Ukhilavi sivrtseebi (Invisible Spaces, 2014), which competed in the Official Short Film Section at the Festival de Cannes, and Léthé (2016), with which she returned to the French competition, this time to the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. Dasatskisi is her first feature film and is part of the official selection of the Festival de Cannes 2020, cancelled due to Covid-19.

Ukhilavi sivrtseebi / Invisible Spaces, Dea Kulumbegashvili, Georgia, 2014, 10’

Invisible Spaces is an intimate glimpse into the world where family hierarchy, religion and the place of the woman are uncontested. Georgian Director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s story lifts the veil on a traditional Georgian family. It is the barriers in which a priest husband holds his exasperated wife captive that create the “invisible space”. It is only when the wife lets out her frustration on their ingenuous daughter that she realizes the futility of her plight in the face of patriarchy and entrapment. The film asks us to shift our wandering gaze on the faces we tend to overlook and the voices we so often opt to shut out of our experience of the “modern” society.

Dea Kulumbegashvilik (Georgia, 1986) studied film directing at Columbia University, in New York. She has directed the short films Ukhilavi sivrtseebi (Invisible Spaces, 2014), which competed in the Official Short Film Section at the Festival de Cannes, and Léthé (2016), with which she returned to the French competition, this time to the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. Dasatskisi is her first feature film and is part of the official selection of the Festival de Cannes 2020, cancelled due to Covid-19.

Metáfora ou a tristeza virada do avesso, Catarina Vasconcelos, Portugal-United Kingdom, 2013, 32'

A correspondence between a brother and sister in the midst of the anniversary of their mother’s death, causes them to go in a journey to the past to understand the time where their mother lived and how their country, Portugal, was in the 1970’s when a revolution took place. In a blend of a family story with the Portuguese History, this film is a fight against oblivion.

Catarina Vasconcelos (Lisboa, 1986) graduated from Lisbon’s Fine Art Academy before moving to London, where she pursued an MA at the Royal College of Art. Her final project, the short film Metáfora ou a Tristeza Virada do Avesso (Metaphor or Sadness Inside Out), received the Best International Short Film award at the Cinéma du Réel festival. The short film screened at various festivals, including Montreal RIDM, Moscow Festival and Doclisboa. A metamorfose dos pássaros (The Metamorphosis of Birds), her first feature film, premiered in the Encounters section of the last Berlin Festival, where it received the FIPRESCI Prize.