Film Archive

Panopticon

Crystal Globe Competition 2024 / Panoptikoni / Georgia, France, Italy, Romania 2024

Synopsis

When Sandro’s father decides to devote his existence to God and leaves for a monastery, the teenage introvert finds himself deprived of the fundamental certainties of life. Abandoned by his father and his mother, who is working abroad, the young man embarks on a journey of self-discovery, opening up both to a new friendship with the radical Lasha, who has ties with an ultra-right organisation, and also to the chance to explore his own sexuality. George Sikharulidze’s perceptive feature debut considers how fine the line is between the observer and the observed, and asks where contemporary post-Soviet Georgian society is heading as it hovers on the border between religious conservatism and nationalisation on the one hand, and the desire for independence and modernisation on the other.

Natalia Kozáková

About the film

95 min / Color, DCP
World premiere
Director George Sikharulidze / Screenplay George Sikharulidze / Dir. of Photography Oleg Mutu / Music Chiara Costanza / Sound Paolo Segat / Editor Giorgia Villa / Art Director Ketevan Nadibaidze / Producer Vladimer Katcharava / Production 20 Steps Productions / Coproduction FILMO2, Ombre Rosse Film Production, Tangaj Production, Independent Film Project / Cast Data Chachua, Vakhtang Kedeladze, Ia Sukhitashvili, Malkhaz Abuladze / Contact 20 Steps Production, Christian De Schutter

About the director

George Sikharulidze (Tbilisi, Georgia). Selected filmography: The Fish That Drowned (2014, short), Red Apples (2016, short), A New Year (2018, short), Fatherland (2019, short), Panopticon (Panoptikoni, 2024).