31/08/2024 - VENICE 2024: The second feature by Rusudan Glurijdze portrays the encounter between two generations and two people, against the backdrop of the mass deportations of Georgians from Russia in 2006

Sergey Dreiden and Salome Demuria in The Antique

“I'm from Georgia”, says Lado in English. “Georgia, United States?”, asks his interlocutor. “Yes, Georgia, United States”. We are in St. Petersburg and the atmosphere is bad for Georgian refugees in Russia - not for Americans, but for those coming from the former Soviet republic. Lado is one of the latter, and he lies. At the beginning of The Antique [+see also:
trailer
interview: Rusudan Glurjidze
film profile] by Rusudan Glurijdze, selected in competition at the 21st Giornate degli Autori of the Venice Film Festival, we see him cross the border in a van loaded with antique furniture, which he transfers from Georgia to Russia. Later, we will see him navigate the streets of St. Petersburg to avoid being captured by Russian police and sent back to his country.

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Inspired by the brutal and illegal mass deportation of thousands of Georgians by the Russian government in 2006 (Vladimir Putin was at his first mandate as president), the second feature by the Georgian filmmaker (her House of Others [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rusudan Glurjidze
interview: Salome Demuria
film profile] won the Grand Prix in Karlovy Vary and was the Georgian candidate for the 2017 Best Foreign Film Oscar) was meant to be screened at the Venice Film Festival over these past few days, but that did not happen: an emergency order from the Venice Court has accepted the challenge raised by the minority producers of the film (amongst which the Russian company Viva Film) regarding an alleged copyright infringement of the screenplay, and blocked its projection. “I will fight till the end so that my film does not become a ghost”, has stated the filmmaker, “my people deserve that someone tells the truth about what happened”. Let’s therefore talk about The Antique.

The focus of the film is essentially human: the hopes and expectations of those who leave their country, for economic reasons or to flee a war, and risk finding themselves violently sent back home. This condition of precarity and of needing to reinvent one’s life is especially embodied by Medea (Salome Demuria), who has a conflictual sentimental relationship with Lado (Vladimir Daushvili). The woman enters the scene crossing the threshold of Vadim's (Sergey Dreiden) house, an elderly Russian man who has been looking to sell his large apartment in the centre of St. Petersburg, full of antique objects (“every time I’m here, I feel like I’m at the Hermitage”, the real estate agent sums up). Medea has barely just arrived from Georgia and works as a manager in a restoration laboratory. The apartment is going for an incredibly low price, but the condition is to live with its 82-year-old owner (“I don’t have more than 5 more years to live”, assures Vadim). Unlike other potential buyers, horrified at the idea of this forced cohabitation, Medea immediately decides to buy.

The film shows the relationship that, from an initial distrust, comes to establish itself between the despotic Vadim and the strong-willed Medea, this strange couple that brings together two generations and two different people, and this while avoiding easy sentimentalism and inviting a reflection on memory. There is one object in particular, an old cabinet full of old photographs of Vadim and his family, which will have a second life and will be decisive for Medea as events unfold. In the meantime, Lado chases Medea, frequents her house secretly from Vadim, and restlessly wanders through the snowy streets of the city. The sirens of the police are getting more frequent and closer, the circle is closing in. Georgians are starting to be lined up, loaded onto a plane, and Putin, on the radio, already talks about “special operations”. However, overlapping with his words are those pronounced by the European human rights court, which in 2019 condemned Russia to a substantial compensation for the violence perpetrated against Georgians.

The Antique was produced by Cinetech (Georgia), Cinetrain (Switzerland), Whitepoint Digital (Finland), Basis Berlin Filmproduction (Germany). French outfit MPM Premium handles international sales.

(Translated from Italian)

Photogallery 29/08/2024: Venice 2024 - The Antique

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Rusudan Glurjidze
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