Ras vkhedavt, rodesac cas vukurebt?
Director: Aleksandre Koberidze
Writer: Aleksandre Koberidze
Cast: Ani Karseladze, Giorgi Bochorishvili, Oliko Barbakadze, Giorgi Ambroladze, Vakhtang Fanchulidze, Sofio Tchanishvili, Irina Chelidze, David Koberidze, Sofio Sharashidze
Seen on: 9./10.1.2026

Plot:
Lisa (Olika Barbakadze) meets Giorgi (Giorgi Ambroladze) by chance. They meet again by chance and take the opportunity to arrange for a date. But a jealous onlooker curses them and when Lisa (Ani Karseladze) and Giorgi (Giorgi Bochrishvili) wake up the next day, they look completely different. Will they recognize each other again?

What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? is an enchanting (in both senses of the word) movie, both a magical realist love story and an entirely truthful declaration of love to the city of Kutaisi, Georgia. It certainly captured my heart.

What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? is a strange film, in the best way. It takes familiar elements and makes them other to give us the ability to look at them in a fresh way. Be it by fragmenting the images with close-ups or by far-off shots that give us little details, by the literally magical touches the story incorporates or by the quite subversion of a few tropes that are staples of the genre, nothing in this boy-meets-girl plot feels quite like what we’re used to. For example: At Lisa and Giorgi’s first meeting we only see their feet and at their second meeting we can barely make them out on the street because the camera is so far away. Lisa is informed of the curse by a small tree, a CCTV camera and the wind. Despite not recognizing each other, they believe steadfastly in their love.

The entire story is told with the help of a narrator (Aleksandre Koberidze himself), and it’s no secret that I am not a huge fan of voice-overs. But that’s mostly when the voice-overs give us the interior dialogue of the characters that we see on screen (something we often find when books are being adapted). In this movie, the warmth and humor that runs through the narration adds plenty to the film that I wouldn’t have wanted to miss.

Especially because the film doesn’t really have many dialogues at all. It seems more interested in a leisurely visual exploration. It felt a little like somebody walking through their childhood home, touching an object there, caressing a scratch here and generally remembering happy times. It as a striking effect – the Kutaisi tourism office could have sponsored this film, that’s for sure. I have been curious about going to Georgia for a while, but now I really want to go to Kutaisi. (When I go, I may or may not return with five to seven dogs – the street dogs get their fair share of love in the film as well.)

The movie is long, there is not that much talking, there are not that many characters and the story is rather simple. In short, nothing much happens and yet, the film never gets boring. It is too emotionally saturated for that. I personally thought the ending actually happened a little quickly, and I wouldn’t have minded staying longer in Koberidze’s Kutaisi.

Summarizing: lovely.