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Sunny Night
On December 25, 2011 Georgian Patriarch Ilia II summed up his then 34 year leadership of the Georgian Orthodox Church as a “sunny night”. The eponymous found-footage film, starting off in 1989, shows the political and social events that occurred after Georgian independence from the Soviet Union. In the film, mainly consisting of various TV newscasts, a variety of formats and sources, disparate images and voices report and claim on protests and recommencements, uproars and wars, religious identity and the only true religion – as well as about the changeover of power between church and state. In the midst of all ongoing shifts, the patriarch stands out as the only constant figure. Yet meanwhile sermonized religion, growing more and more powerful, begins to take on radical forms, going as far as priests forming front row human-chains, leading protests of several thousand orthodox believers chasing a handful of LGBT activist throughout the streets of Tbilisi in May of 2013. The film provides a raw and a complex view on Georgia.
Awards
Special Jury Mention, Focus Caucasus, CineDOC-Tbilisi, Georgia, 2018
Soso Dumbadze
Born in 1981, Soso Dumbadze is a filmmaker and activist, currently living and working in Cologne, Germany and Tbilisi, Georgia. After attending the film and television program at the University of Tbilisi (1998-2001), Dumbadze studied at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, graduating in 2011. Besides his work in film, Soso Dumbadze produces film and video installations for museum and gallery spaces. He is the director of “Sa.Ga”, a publishing company in Georgia, which has made around 15 books, including the essays of Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno, Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov, Harun Farocki, Chris Marker and others.
Filmography
Sunny Night, 2017
Lea Hartlaub
Lea Hartlaub started making films in 2002, following up a photographic occupation. Lea has completed a postgraduate degree at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (2012). Apart from documentaries, she is also interested in video-installations. In 2008, she joined “Dokumentarisch Arbeiten”, a group around cinéma vérité including filmmakers K. Wildenhahn and G. Tuchtenhagen. In 2010, she completed the short essay Bensberg September 2009, included on the Best of Oberhausen 2010/11 showcase and screened at international film festivals, such as Fid Marseilles, Jihlava, etc. The found-footage essay film Sunny Night is her second feature-length film (co-directed by Soso Dumbadze).
Filmography
Uhlenflug, 2008
Bensberg September 2009, 2010
A War Film Without War Images – Six Chapters On Georgian Nationalism, 2011
Rare Birds in These Lands, 2013 (co-director)
Sr, 2013-16
A Yellow Bus, 2017
Sunny Night, 2017 (co-director)
Film Details:
Georgia/ Germany, 2017, 85’
in Georgian, German, Russian, Engish w/ Arm./ Eng. subs
Directors: Soso Dumbadze, Lea Hartlaub
Screenwriter: Soso Dumbadze
Producers: Soso Dumbadze, Lea Hartlaub, Meike Martens
Editor: Lea Hartlaub
Sound: Jana Irmert
In collaboration with: Blinker Filmproduktion GmbH, Georgian National Film Centre