{"id":3280,"date":"2025-12-16T12:30:47","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T12:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gfr.ge\/?p=3280"},"modified":"2025-12-16T12:31:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T12:31:18","slug":"%e1%83%a1%e1%83%90%e1%83%93%e1%83%90-%e1%83%ae%e1%83%90%e1%83%a0-%e1%83%a1%e1%83%90%e1%83%93%e1%83%90-%e1%83%ae%e1%83%90%e1%83%a0-%e1%83%a1%e1%83%90%e1%83%93%e1%83%90-%e1%83%ae%e1%83%90%e1%83%a0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gfr.ge\/en\/%e1%83%a1%e1%83%90%e1%83%93%e1%83%90-%e1%83%ae%e1%83%90%e1%83%a0-%e1%83%a1%e1%83%90%e1%83%93%e1%83%90-%e1%83%ae%e1%83%90%e1%83%a0-%e1%83%a1%e1%83%90%e1%83%93%e1%83%90-%e1%83%ae%e1%83%90%e1%83%a0\/","title":{"rendered":"WNHERE ARE YOU, WHERE ARE YOU, WHERE ARE YOU?.."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nothing special or absolutely \u201cnothing\u201d seems to happen in Alexandre Koberidze\u2019s film, \u201cDry Leaf\u201d (2025). This story has neither a plot nor a classical dramaturgical structure but a solid and clear \u201cinternal\u201d outline and an unusual structure. It is unlike anyone else and does not repeat anything \u201cfrom the outside.\u201d It is light and bright, though involves many problems \u2013 personal and universal.<\/p>

Reporter Lisa leaves her parents a farewell letter and disappears. It seems that she has neither reason nor conflict at home or at work \u2013 the sports magazine \u201cSkhivi\u2026\u201d And after waiting for his daughter to return home for several days the father \u2013 Irakli sets off in search by car along the roads that Lisa, who is on a business trip, should have traveled to the villages of Georgia to shoot football fields.<\/p>

The reason why and for where Lisa left home, and why she left her father a message with various codes and strange hints (how it is possible to find the house where she currently lives), is revealed only in the finale. And the father, who has always understood Lisa perfectly and can also decipher her code, finds her. And the mother, together with the father, calmly adapts to such \u201cescape\u201d of her daughter and waits for the \u201cday of seeing\u201d \u2013 in the hope of meeting at New Year.<\/p>

The reason itself gives the film a new direction, meaning and context \u2013 the demolition of the Sports Academy \u2013 becomes a metaphor for destruction, loss, broken ties with the ground, the past, the present and the desire to start life from a clean slate. As in previous films, Aleksandre Koberidze burdens the course of the main events, the extreme, the personal, with the line of current, ecological, social problems in the country. And creates a new model of the world and cinema, different and unique, governed by its own rules and not subject to others. It has a unique way and form of artistic expression. With a set of \"infinite signs\" that turn into symbols.<\/p>

The film is a co-production of Georgia and Germany. The script, cinematography, editing, direction and voiceover of the narrator belong to Aleksandre Koberidze, the main role \u2013 the father \u2013 is played by Davit Koberidze, and the episodic roles are played by: Irina Chelidze, Manu Tavadze, Otar Nizharadze, Giorgi Lazarishvili, Davit Jincharadze, Vakhtang Panchulidze, Giorgi Bochorishvili, Nato Gelashvili. These people create parts, fragments, and character details of a group portrait of society.<\/p>

Most of the other characters are invisible. Even Lisa's friend Levan accompanies Irakli on his journey and talks to him. Some characters, to whom the father shows his daughter\u2019s photo, appear for a moment in the distance and soon disappear, some speakers are not seen at all. Only voices are heard, during short and one-type dialogues. In very short phrases and in a deafening tone. The unexciting course of the narrative is interspersed with light humor, by placing the characters, their actions, and their lines in peculiar angles. Also by the fact that the characters are invisible and sometimes not directly visible in the shot, even when Irakli \u201cmeets\u201d and talks to them.<\/p>

The film was shot and recorded with a \u201cSony Ericsson\u201d phone (just like \u201cI Wish Summer Never Came Again\u201d). The image is poor quality, out of focus, faded and aged like a picture or an illustration. The \u201cpoor quality,\u201d unsophisticated, unprocessed, naturally recorded sound sequence turns into the same sounds of a blurry image. The \u201cinner voices\u201d are also joined by short comments from the narrator behind the scenes. The same fragmentary inserts. Said calmly, unemotionally, and \u201cfrom the outside.\u201d Such a solution, such a method makes the story, the characters, the originality of the world natural, direct and intimate.<\/p>

Irakli's journey begins at the Boris Paichadze monument at the \"Dinamo\" stadium and moves to sports pitches scattered across Georgia. Forgotten, abandoned, time-worn and empty football pitches. From some only goalposts remain, from others only one door and one goalpost and some have been completely demolished to build a new hotel.<\/p>

Along the way, it becomes clear that Irakli is traveling in a world where only children live, in or near stadiums \u201cin real.\u201d They live and play football everywhere, even where there are no more stadiums. Apart from children, dogs, cats, horses, cows, buffaloes and \"nature's gate,\" there seems to be nothing alive here. And despite the fact that this is an empty space, almost devoid of people, it is still full, moving, intensely saturated - with signs, colors, landscapes, details, fragments, the \"faded\" sunlight of autumn and the gentle tempo-rhythm of life, to which stativity and dynamics are given by the variability of the quality of objects and images. Supernatural, at the same time reflective of the truth of life and speaking with new artistic forms, beyond documentary description.<\/p>

Aleksandre Koberidze returns to the principles of the visual solution of cinema, focuses on it and creates a cinematic object in which the defining feature is the poetic, plastic expression of the world. \"Dry Leaf\" is a monumental painting, a fresco or a panorama. With expressive and mystical shots. The image combines the color and depth, infinity and mystery of the Impressionists, Japanese painting and miniatures, Utamaro\u2019s light ephemera of and Hokusai\u2019s airy landscapes. The lightness and airiness of color, stroke, silhouette. It combines the infinity, continuity and non-interruption of the cyclical peculiarity of nature, the volume and scale of which, geographical or territorial boundaries, are not measured by ordinary standards. Aleksandre Koberidze, as a true storyteller, sees and captures life in such a frameless, surreal, alien and attractive style. In it, one can see the peculiarity of eternal, inevitable existence and even the smallest features of everyday life, existence.<\/p>

Father's journey is long but not annoying, not tiring. Instilling peace and happiness. You have neither obligations nor worries. You follow and it seems that you are in this space too. Part of it. A participant and observer. You are attentive, so that you do not miss anything and in the meantime, your memories, feelings, associations begin to act. Those living and revived sensations that are born when you find yourself somewhere in a similar environment. Sometimes you will see a river, sometimes a field flower, sometimes a bush, a tree, sometimes a spring, sometimes a stray dog and grazing cows, sometimes an old ball, sometimes you will look at the landscape, \u201cthe distant dawns of the evening\u201d where \u201cthe distant sky scatters foggy thoughts\u201d and \u201cthe leaves are flying in the wind\u2026\u201d<\/p>

David Koberidze \u2013 an unprofessional actor \u2013 is distinguished by his naturalness, immediacy and non- artificiality. One gets the impression that he is \u201cdepicting himself\u201d and the invisible director simply follows him and takes wherever Irakli goes and what he does and says, as he pleases. David Koberidze freely, boldly and openly overcomes the boundaries and barriers of the film and the roads, in order to achieve the main \u201cpromise,\u201d which should bring people relief and, by confronting fate, salvation. And Irakli is no longer just Lisa\u2019s father \u2013 he is generalized to the image of a father.<\/p>

The second magician and hypnotist, who participates in the atmosphere of the film-fairy tale and sacredly revives, strengthens, makes every shot or sensation intense and captivating, is Giorgi Koberidze, whose music (as in other films by Aleksandre Koberidze and independently) with its magnificent melody, pauses, silence, very quiet and extremely pure sounds, transparency and cyanosis of vowels, light and drama, creates a magical field of \"dry leaves,\" like nature, the existence of which is a confirmation of the existence of the world, like the rustling of the wind or the rustling of grass or leaves. The music is of the same tone as the colors of the grass in landscapes and stadiums \u2013 as if faded, withered, tinged with yellowness and redness, imbued with inner charge and sadness, as it does in \u201cautumn days,\u201d when \u201cthe meadow turns yellow, the pasture turns yellow\u2026\u201d and \u201cthe leaves fall continuously from trees\u201d\u2026and when the sun turns gently golden.<\/p>

\"Dry Leaf\" is a term used in football to describe a specific type of kick. In such a situation, the ball begins to spin around its own axis and flies in an erratic, unpredictable trajectory, like a leaf that abruptly changes direction as it falls from a tree.<\/p>

In turn, every leaf, visually and in essence, goes through the stages of any spiritual life \u2013 from birth to death \u2013 and gradually changes texture and color. All the leaves that \u201cglitter in the sun, follow the winds\u201d and the leaves, whether natural or graphic, in various stages of withering and drying, from time to time \u201cfly\u201d into shots of \u201cDry Leaf\u201d which itself is like a leaf that the wind, or time, \u201ctear off from the branch\u201d and it also falls somewhere nearby. And if a strong wind blows \u2013 very far away. The artistic structure and genre composition of Aleksandre Koberidze\u2019s film are built on such \u201cblows\u201d, directions and trajectories.<\/p>

Perhaps the father's journey, and that of Lisa's before, is a metaphor for another, even more distant \"journey.\" After being cut off from the ground. Like death. Perhaps the daughter's departure means such an \"other\" departure. The beautiful change of spaces, the transition from one dimension, from one world to another is perceived quite substantially, as in a myth. The director's stock of associations is rich and multifaceted. Even a beautiful dream can turn into a turbulent obsession. If it is repeated. Perhaps what happened was the father's dream. \"The dream of the sun\" and nothing else. Everything is permissible.<\/p>

The reality of the film is above the real and the fixation of this benchmark becomes one of the defining, facilitating conditions for the transmission of metaphorical reality in plastic forms. Just like infinite time, or the infinity of time within the film's shot (the film's running time is 3 hours and 06 minutes, although it could have been a little less), as the solidity of the axis of penetrating action, which has a direct connection with the language of parables, metaphorical, figurative speech.<\/p>

These \u2013 seemingly familiar and many times seen \u2013 ordinary, but enchanted places, spells, witchcraft and other such things are loved by Aleksandre Koberidze, he clearly believes in their existence and reality. More precisely, this is exactly how he sees and perceives reality \u2013 in such colors, shapes, \u201cfocus.\u201d And, first of all, he himself is happy on this fabulous journey. And when the film ends, you feel that you do not want to say goodbye to the places you have already become accustomed to. You also \u201cdiscover\u201d that your eyesight is \u201ccoming back,\u201d your gaze is straightening and that reality \u201chasn\u2019t changed.\u201d You also feel more clearly what a beautiful fairy tale or dream you were in. That you had such a strange dream, expressed in this way by the director\u2019s thoughts \u2013 about freedom, which confronts the contradictions and limitations of the outside world. Because, as it is known, a new day will bring happiness to those who have been resistant.<\/p>

If an artist lives in a child, then his personal world, his art is bright, alive and free. A child truly lives in Aleksandre Koberidze, perhaps a little stubborn and restless but kind and hopeful, who loves animals, nature and children, who you can trust and if you follow him on a journey, he will not leave you, will never get tired and will not get lost like a guide.<\/p>

Aleksandre Koberidze is already among those directors whose films are awaited. The public \u201ccategorically demands\u201d or looks at it with suspicion \u2013 that all his works \u201cmust\u201d be no less than their predecessors. Will they be? This is what happened in the case of \u201cDry Leaf.\u201d Then, at the 78th Locarno Festival, the film received the FIPRESCI Prize and the \u201cSpecial Mention\u201d of the jury; at the Bangkok Festival \u2013 the Grand Prix; at the Tokyo FIlMeX \u2013 the \u201cSpecial Mention\u201d and the Student Jury Prize. It has been released on screens and at festivals in Latin America, the USA, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Serbia and many other places. It has been shown in cinemas in the USA since March 2026. It was also awarded the Golden Prometheus for Best Feature Film at the 26th Tbilisi International Film Festival. The international jury of critics ranked \"Dry Leaf\" ninth out of the 50 best films of 2025 according to a poll by the British Film Institute.<\/p>

\u201cDry Leaf\u201d continues its festival and distribution journey. And since this film has naturally \u201cdisappeared\u201d from the author\u2019s creative life, the time has come for new expectations from Aleksandre Koberidze \u2013 what will he shoot, about what and what will his next film be like? Where will he deviate, which roads and which places will he visit? What nets will he weave around people, dogs, cats, horses, places, cities, villages, forests, stadiums, houses, streets, mountains, fields, rivers? What elements will he call out? What magic will he summon? What kind of tale will he tell?<\/p>

Lela Ochiauri<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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[…]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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