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Song About a Flower

Song About a Flower

Sapovnela

Otar Iosseliani | Russia | 1959 | 18' |

| IFFR 2009

‘Sapovnela’ means ‘the flower that nobody can find’. We present this film without subtitles (the voice-over was forced on us by the censorship in the Soviet era, but the film was banned anyway due to its ending). This was my first attempt at combining music and colours. Also, this is a story about the old florist Mikhail Mamulashvili who created wonderful compositions in his small garden. (Otar Iosseliani)
Otar Iosseliani (1934, Georgia) studied maths and directing in Moscow. His first mid-length drama Aprèl initially succumbed to the censor’s scissors. When he started to feel thwarted by the Soviet authorities in the 1970s, he moved to Paris. He won prizes for both Les favoris de la lune and Et la lumière fut in Venice.

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