Valsi Petchoraze
Georgia,
1992, 108 min
Shown in 1993
CREDITS
- dir
-
Lana Gogoberidze
- prod
-
Alexander Sharashidze
- scr
-
Lana Gogoberidze, Zaira Arsenishvili
- cam
-
Lana Gogoberidze
- editor
-
Sophia Matcaidze
- cast
-
Guram Pirtskhalava, Nino Surguladze, Marika Tshitshinadze, Tamara Skhirtladze
- source
-
Lileo Arts
- premiere
-
North American Premiere
-
COMMENTS
Lana Gogoberidze in person.
OTHER
"I wanted to make a film about my past, our past. It seemed that the dictatorial regime in my country had disappeared. But, little by little, it became clear that whatever I considered to be the past had turned into the present." Working under the constant threat of arrest during the final months of the Gamsakhurdia regime, director and activist Lana Gogoberdize examines her background as a child of political outlaws in her latest feature, Waltz on the Pechora. Set in 1937 Stalinist Georgia, the film traces the parallel destinies of a mother, condemned by the government as "an enemy of the people" and exiled to a work camp in Siberia, and her daughter, who meanwhile is sent to an orphanage. Arriving at the overcrowded work camp, the mother and other women who are not considered strong enough to be laborers, must journey still farther, crossing the icy Siberian landscape in search of food and shelter. At the same time, the daughter escapes the orphanage and returns to her former home, where she finds that a KGB officer has taken up residence. He protects her and an uneasy rapport between them develops—one of abhorrence and attraction, need and suspicion. Gogoberidze visually separates the two stories, depicting the mother in black-and-white images and the daughter in color. Yet, the two narratives work in tandem to document both the devastation that Stalinism exacted on an entire generation and the legacy of totalitarianism in present day Georgia.
FACTOID #384
Henry Fonda attended the SFIFF in 1967 to receive a tribute for his work in classics like The Grapes of Wrath and 12 Angry Men. Daughter Jane showed up in 1975 for a tribute of her own. And her brother Peter made two Festival appearances, one as a guest in 1963 and another to accompany the film Nadja (in which he gleefully portrayed Dr. Van Helsing) in 1995.
