December 18, 2014, 4:30 p.m. — Tell My Friends that I’m Dead (2003), Granny (2013)
Tell My Friends that I’m Dead
2003. France. Directed by Nino Kirtadze. Kirtadze, a gifted documentarian and chronicler of Georgian culture and customs, introduces perhaps her most astounding film, an intimate look at western Georgia’s elaborate mourning rituals, thusly: “The dead are not separated from the living. People involve them in their family life, talk to them, seek their advice.... The family is never alone.” Then she disappears behind her camera for a non-judgmental look at some intensely personal scenes of family and friends dressing a recently deceased husband and discussing what to buy for him to take on his journey, or people crashing a car through a wall so that it can be the decorated coffin of a beloved son. The cemeteries are full of lifelike images of the departed; the living and the dead share the same space and protect one another. In Georgian; English subtitles. 86 min.
