Dry Leaf

Lisa, a photographer documenting abandoned football fields in the Georgian countryside, has gone missing. Her father Irakli—played by Koberidze’s own father—sets out to find her, accompanied by Levani, Lisa’s mysterious (and invisible) boyfriend. Together they wander through the lush Caucasus landscape, where animals and villagers—both visible and unseen—cross their path. Filmmaker and football enthusiast Alexandre Koberidze (What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?, FFG 2021) shot this hypnotic odyssey on an old Sony Ericsson cell phone, but in his hands the grainy pixels take on a painterly glow, recalling the brushstrokes of Cézanne and Monet. The images are carried by a spellbinding score from Giorgi Koberidze, the director’s brother, making Dry Leaf both an intimate family project and a radical meditation on disappearing, letting go, and the pleasures of being on the road—in the spirit of Kiarostami.