Let us Flow

The film program borrows its title from Sophio Medoidze’s Let us Flow from her triology developed in the Tusheti region in the northeastern Georgia. It is a direct translation of ’vidinot’ – a common greeting in Tushetian dialect, suggesting a constant flow. The idea of a flow, a movement, served as inspiration to invite Medoidze and Ismailova from the regions of South Caucasus and Central Asia whose works deal with mobility and borders, states of transition, and social and political flows.

In collaboration with Collega, Charlottenborg Cinema presents a film programme curated by Lotte Løvholm and Inga Lāce. Lotte Løvholm is the founder of the exhibition space Collega, and Inga Lāce us a curator at the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art and researcher from MoMa C-MAP. The film proram, which presents works by Sophio Medoidze and Saodat Ismailova, is accompanied by an exhibition at Collega featuring Danish artist Rikke Diemer and Latvian artist Anna Malicka.

The film program is looping during our opening hours from 17 January to 18 February unless there are events in the cinema. It is free to see the films with paid admission to Kunsthal Charlottenborg

Sophio Medoidze:

LET US FLOW (ვიდინოთ), 63min, 4K color, sound, 2023. CPH premiere.
Language: Georgian with English subtitles.

A long poem to the mountains, Let us Flow is a two-part feature that explores the isolated mountainous region of Tusheti, in North-east Georgia. It considers the importance of ritual, the maintenance of community ties, and how modernisation and migration are transforming rural landscapes. Shot over several years, Let us Flow uses innovative audio-visual techniques to make visible the symbolic and physical division of sacred spaces within the community and offers a nuanced perspective on a culture where ancestral shrines are only accessible to men.

Medoidze is interested in linguistic parallels between Tushetian dialect and filmmaking jargon, between ‘hunting’ and ‘shooting’: Tushetians believe that odd years are governed by Goddess Dali, the protector of wild animals, and even years are St George’s years. Let us Flow follows this structure as its two parts are shot in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

Saodat Ismailova:

Zukhra, 29 min, HDV, color 16:9, sound: stereo, 2013, Uzbekistan.
Language: Uzbek with English subtitles

Zukhra (uzb) – Venus, women in Central Asia believe that the planet grants sacred wishes, following a local myth that tells a story of a young woman who disappears and transforms herself into the planet. Zukhra portrays a young woman at her deathbed or in a lethargic dream, revealing memories that grow from personal and intimate to collective and historical. The sounds unveil history of the last century of Uzbekistan touching question of the delimitation of the national borders in Central Asia, emancipation of women in juxtaposition to the sounds of sacred female spiritual rituals that are routed in animalism. Zukhra embodies fates of Uzbek women waiting for awakening.