Cinema Releases - What Do We See When We Look At The Sky?
It’s love at first sight when Lisa and Giorgi meet by chance on a street in the Georgian city of Kutaisi. Love strikes them so suddenly that they even forget to ask each other’s names. Before continuing on their way, they agree to meet the next day. Little do they know that an evil eye casts its spell on them. Will they manage to meet again? And if they do, will they know who they are? Life goes on as usual in their hometown, street dogs stray, the soccer world cup begins and a film crew on its quest to find true love might be what they need.
150 min/Germany/Georgia/Georgian with English subtitles/2021/Cert U
World Premiere and Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize – Berlin International Film Festival
UK Premiere 7th & 8th Oct 2021 London Film Festival, Leeds Film Festival: 14,16,18 Nov 2021 Vue Light Leeds
BGS London Georgian Film Festival 3 Oct 2022, 7:30 p.m. Cine Lumiere
Week Commencing 27 November
Week Starting 25 November
| Ciné Lumière | 17 Queensbury Place | London SW7 2DT | 020 78713515 | all week |
| BFI Southbank | Belvedere Road | London SE1 8XT | 020 7928 3232 | all week |
| Curzon Bloomsbury | Brunswick Centre | London WC1N 1AW | 01233 555644 | all week |
| HOME | 2 Tony Wilson Place | Manchester M15 4FN | 0161 200 1500 | all week |
| ICA | The Mall | London SW1Y 5AH | 020 7930 3647 | all week |
| Tyneside | 10 Pilgrim St | Newcastle NE1 6QG | 0191 227 5500 | 29/11-1/12 |
| Curzon Home Cinema | ||||
| BFI Player |
Week Commencing 20 November
Week Commencing 27 November
Week Starting 2nd December
| ICA | The Mall | London SW1Y 5AH | 020 7930 3647 | 4 & 7 Dec |
| GFT | 12 Rose Street | Glasgow G3 6RB | 0141332 6535 | all week |
| Curzon Home Cinema | ||||
| BFI Player |
Week Starting 9th December
| MAC Cinema | Cannon Hill Park | Birmingham B129QH | 0121 446 3232 | 11 & 15th Dec only |
| Malvern Theatre | 10 & 13 Dec only | |||
| Curzon Home Cinema | ||||
| BFI Player |
From 16th December
| Firstsite | High St | Colchester CO1 1JH | 01206 713700 | 21 Dec only |
| Curzon Home Cinema | ||||
| BFI Player |
Week Starting 23rd December
| Curzon Home Cinema | ||||
| BFI Player |
From 30th December
| Watershed | 1 Canons Rd | Bristol BS1 5TX | 0117 927 5100 | 30 Dec-1 Jan |
| Ultimate Picture Palace | Jeune St Cowley Rd | Oxford OX4 1BN | 01865 245288 | 30/12 & 3-5 Jan |
| Curzon Home Cinema | ||||
| BFI Player |
From 6th January
| Heart of Hawick | Kirkstile | Hawick TD9 0AE | 01450 360680 | 11th Jan |
| Curzon Home Cinema | ||||
| BFI Player |
From 13th January
| Chichester | New Park Rd | Chichester PO19 7XY | 01243 786650 | 30/12 & 3-5 Jan |
| Curzon Home Cinema | ||||
| BFI Player |
After studying microeconomy and film production in Tiflis, Alexandre Koberidze moved to Berlin and studied directing at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB). During his studies, he directed several successful short films, starting with his short Colophon (2015) that gained critical plaudits at the Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen. His first feature Let the Summer Never Come Again (2017) won multiple awards at many festivals worldwide, including the Grand Prix at FID Marseille.
2021 WHAT DO WE SEE WHEN WE LOOK AT THE SKY?
2018 LINGER ON SOME PALE BLUE DOT (SHORT)
2017 LET THE SUMMER NEVER COME AGAIN
2017 THE PERFECT SPECTATOR (SHORT)
2015 COLOPHON (SHORT)
2014 LOOKING BACK IS GRACE (SHORT)
| Cast | ||
| Giorgi | Giorgi Bochorishvili | |
| Lisa | Ani Karseladze | |
| Lisa | Oliko Barbakadze | |
| Giorgi | Giorgi Ambroladze | |
| Café Owner | Vakhtang Fanchulidze | |
| Crew | ||
| Director/Writer | Alexandre Koberidze | |
| Director of Photography | Faraz Fesharaki | |
| Editor | Alexandre Koberidze | |
| Music and Sound | Giorgi Koberidze | |
| Production Design | Maka Jebirashvili | |
| Costume Design | Nino Zautashvili | |
| Commissioning Editor | Verena Veihl | |
| Co-Producers | Anna Dziapshipa | |
| Ketevan Kipiani | ||
| Luise Hauschild | ||
| Maka Jebirashvili | ||
| Producer | Mariam Shatberashvili | |
| Production | German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB) | |
| Coroduction | New Matter Films (Germany) | |
| Sakdoc Film (Georgia) | ||
| Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg | ||
| Supported by | Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (MBB) | |
| Georgian National Film Centre | ||
| 150 min/Germany/Georgia 2021 | ||
| 1:1.66 / 5.1 | ||
| Georgian with English subtitles/Cert U |
★★★★
"In what is possibly the most gloriously offbeat piece of World Cup counter-programming ever attempted, the utterly beguiling What Do We See When We Look At The Sky?, by Georgian director Alexandre Koberidze, arrives in UK cinemas. Set in the city of Kutaisi, against the backdrop of the previous World Cup, the film is a playful meandering, rangy story that threads together teasing hints of magical realism, a tale of love at first sight, talking drainpipes and sentient surveillance cameras, and the football-watching preferences of the local stray dog population."
Wendy Ide, THE OBSERVER
"Meanderingly likeable existential fantasy-romance...there is something attractive in its kind of innocence.
Muses on love, fate, identity and the mystery of ordinary things..
Peter Bradshaw, THE GUARDIAN
★★★★★
"This witty and inventive modern fairytale set in Georgian city of Kutaisi...a city so romantically sun-dappled it makes Paris look like Cumbernauld.
These mini-stories drift along and interwine in beautiful, surprising ways that are simlpy breathtaking, effortlessly joyous and, cumulatively, deeply moving."
Jamie Dunn, THE SKINNY Magazine
"This playful, magical yet realist film...enchanting, meandering and unclassifiable...like a true fairytale.
A masterpiece of Georgian movie magic."
Tom Charity, SIGHT AND SOUND
★★★★★
'Stunning...a truly bewitching Georgian romance. Alexandre Koberidze's remarkable second feature depicts a lyrically sublime romance between a pharmacist and a footballer. An eternally charming and magnifying folktale that embraces the impossible coincidences of life.'
Emily Maskell,
WE LOVE CINEMA
“Two lovers in a lively and ancient Georgian town are cursed not to recognize each other in this witty, warm, surprising modern folktale. [...] and given how much this movie loves the movies, as well as dogs, music, children, soccer, ice cream, the ancient Georgian town of Kutaisi, and the very process of falling in love, there is something immensely hopeful and moving about being thus invited to collude."
Jessica Kiang, VARIETY
“The question is not so much, What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? but what exactly we see when we look at Alexandre Koberidze’s joyously elusive flight of fancy from Georgia. This second feature from the director of Let The Summer Never Come Again (2017) is a slyly inventive, free-ranging adventure in cinematic possibility. [...] in the sheer exuberance of its exploratory spirit, Koberidze’s film is very much of benefit to cinema – and any who feared that the art form was running out of new ways to find poetry in the real.”
Jonathan Romney, SCREEN
★★★★
"From vocal seedlings to surprise transformations, Georgian director Alexandre Koberidze invests the everyday with magic in high cerebral yet playful second feature.
Kevin Harley, TOTAL FILM
★★★★
'One of two of the year's best film's. Infectiously charming and beautifully told...I could bask in Koberidze's wonderful little world for far longer. Shot on beautiful, textured 16mm and scored with elegant classical music. It's hard not to be wooed by this playful film.
Lisa and Giorgi fall for each other at first sight and are then immediately torn apart by a curse. So while World Cup fever kicks off in the city and the sporting dreamers take their seats, the two lovers find their path together.
Caitlin Quinlan, LITTLE WHITE LIES
★★★★
'Weirdly spellbinding...a mysterious, inquisitive and intriguing movie.'
Daniel Allen, LOUD AND CLEAR
★★★★
'In it's entirety, What Do We See When We Look At The Sky? feels like the lovechild of a body sway rom-com and David Lynch's Lost Highway, with elements of Arabian Nights.'
Selina Sondermann,THE UPCOMING
★★★★
'Like the football, this is a game of sorts, with Koberidze using his narrative like a pitch, weaving up and down it as though his story were a ball, sometimes passing it to us for us to play with, but just as often nutmegging us when we least expect it and haring off in another direction. The goal is evident from the start but the question is how will he reach it. The answer is unexpectedly but with panache.'
Amber Wilkinson, EYE FOR FILM
"The most entrancingly feel-good movie of the year, which urges you to tell anyone who'd listen about its wondrous existence so they can bask in its soul-soothing magic too."
Carlos Aguilar, LOS ANGELES TIMES
"Wonderful new romance. A true magic art, intimate an massive at the same time."
Barry Hertz, GLOBE AND MAIL
"We see a highly accomplished work of cinematic art.”
Boyd van Hoeij, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
"The scripted scenes still mix with quietly astonishing moments, which capture the town’s uniqueness and convey a sense of wonder. Some of them are humorous, such as a purportedly missed encounter between two dogs that ‘agreed’ to watch a soccer match together. Others are visual interludes, or refrains, such as a soccer-ball bobbing down the stream, a little girl muscling through a violin piece, or the dancing of light and wind against gauzy curtains."
Ela Bittancourt, SIGHT AND SOUND
"Movies can truly be anything, and the beauty of Alexandre Koberidze’s lyrical and ineffably romantic “What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?” is how it reminds us of that — time and again — during almost every one of its meandering 150 minutes."
David Erlich, INDIEWIRE
"So often we ask for stories to deviate from the expected script, to give us something organic and real, and that Koberidze’s film playfully rejects this, building his own compelling fable from the putty of love, is refreshing."
Jack King, THE PLAYLIST
"What Do We See is a stream of rewarding diversions flowing like tributaries of the Rioni River that runs through Kutaisi and under its bridges.”
David Hudson, THE CRITERION COLLECTION
“…a gorgeous modern fairy tale about ill-starred love, mysticism, soccer and street dogs, which is also perhaps the most bewitching love letter to a hometown that I’ve ever seen.”
Jessica Kiang, THE NEW YORK TIMES
“More than a romance, or a fairy tale about sentient security cameras, What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? is an ode to living in the moment and finding beauty in the familiar.”
Orla Smith, THE FILM STAGE
"A heartening sign of the kind of movie—idiosyncratic, surprising, youthful, romantic—that this year's Berlinale has chosen to spotlight in the main competition, Alexandre Koberidze’s second film, What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? is a true delight. .[…] it confirms the Georgian director as a major talent."
Daniel Kasman, MUBI
“…an idiosyncratic mix of styles, genres and forms that incredibly wraps into a coherent 150 minutes of cinematic joy.”
Vladan Petkovic, CINEUROPA
"With its abundant curiosity and patience, the film has a whimsy that could be dscribed as impish were it not so suffused with warmth and generosity...an offbeat epic informed by a reverence for the past and a delicate wariness toward the future."
Christopher Gray, SLANT MAGAZINE
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Film Clips
Alexandre Koberidze introduces his film - Mubi notebook
Interview with Alexandre Koberidze by Jordan Cronk in Cinema Scope
Interview with Alexandre Koberidze by Dennis Lim from the New York Film Festival (YouTube or Soundcloud)
Interview with Alexandre Koberidze from Film Comment
Interview with Alexandre Koberidze from Filmmaker Magazine
Alexandre Koberidze discusses love, curses and film references in Cineuropa
Zoom interview with Alexandre Koberidze from Static Vision
Zoom interview with Alexandre Koberidze from The Upcoming
Alexandre Koberidze interviewed by Matt Turner on Mubi Notebook