Things are heading east, at least on the screen: The Georgian Film Days and the Kurdish Film Days are taking place in Munich, each lasting four days, from June 13 to 16. Whether the parallel programming was a good idea on the part of the organizers remains to be seen: the audience will have to decide between current feature films, documentaries, children’s films or short films from Georgia or Kurdistan.
The Georgian Film Days in the Film Museum are starting with rotten teeth and false promises: The documentary “Smiling Georgia” is about a campaign promise from 2012, when the president at the time advertised free dentures. As a result, people had their teeth pulled, but the president lost the election. Almost a decade later, there are still large gaps in the teeth. Other films at this country film festival are the documentary “Hotel Metalurg” and the tragicomedy “Blackbird in the Bramble Bush” about the late awakening of love in a nearly 50-year-old woman.
The selection is even larger at the Kurdish Film Days, where a total of nine films are being shown. To kick things off, Sina Muhammed will present his drama “Transient Happiness”, about an old man who drives his wife to the hospital on a motorbike. Ayşe Polat’s thriller “Im toten Winkel”, set in northeastern Turkey and recently awarded three German Film Prizes, is also on the program. A film for the whole family is “Sieger sein” by the German-Kurdish director Soleen Yusef, in which a Syrian refugee girl stirs up a football team in Berlin.
Georgian Film DaysThurs., 13th to Sun., 16th June, Filmmuseum, St.-Jakobs-Platz 1 and Werkstattkino, Fraunhoferstraße 9; Kurdish Film DaysThurs., 13th, to Sun., 16th June, Gasteig HP8, Hans-Preißinger-Strasse 8