Film Forum

WINNER! Special Jury Prize, 2024 Venice Film Festival

Under the deep blue, portentous sky of the rugged Georgian countryside, Nina, an OB/GYN with both heroic and dark impulses, faces malpractice charges brought by an aggressive husband whose child died during delivery. Meanwhile, it is an open secret that she provides illegal abortions to village women. Dea Kulumbegashvili’s sophomore work plumbs the outer limits of feminist empathy and the stark realities of patriarchal control of women’s bodies in a modern-day medical system. Cinematographer Arseni Khachaturian (EYIMOFE) captures the stunning contrast of beauty and brutality in Nina’s world, and composer Matthew Herbert (THE WONDER) creates the sound and sense of an immersive, whispering breath.

Presented with support from The Ashes and Diamonds Fund for Eastern European Film and The Endowed Fund for Emerging Filmmakers

2024     134 MIN.     FRANCE / ITALY / GEORGIA     METROGRAPH PICTURES
IN GEORGIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Trailer

Reviews

“Unmistakably alive in a way cinema seldom is.”
– Savina Petkova, The Film Stage  

“There isn’t a horror director alive who wouldn’t kill to create frames as tense, ominous, and viscerally captivating as those of Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili, who applies her talents toward elemental character studies about rural women suffering under the yoke of patriarchy at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains.”
– David Ehrlich, IndieWire

“Altogether extraordinary. Unfolds with the high-stakes, breath-stopping tension of a thriller.”
– Guy Lodge, Variety

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