Otar Iosseliani: Fables of Modern Life

Chronicler of tradition, seeker of things and values (nearly) lost, Otar Iosseliani’s career was divided between his native Georgia and his adoptive home in France, but he remained very much the same filmmaker throughout his long working life: a student of Tati, Dickens, and Buñuel, a master of the long-shot long take, a slyly smiling satirist fascinated and bemused by the remarkable variety of human types, melancholy in contemplation of the tendency of modern society—both the Soviet system and western capitalism—to encourage and indeed enforce uniformity. Following on Asia Society’s premiere presentations of Iosseliani’s Georgian trilogy this July, Metrograph presents the most extensive retrospective of his work to appear in New York in a dog’s age, and a precious opportunity to discover—or revisit—a delightful and sui generis artist, tender, trenchant, and terribly funny.

New 4K restorations of Otar Iosseliani’s first 3 Georgian features commissioned by Pastorale Productions.