Stummfilmkonzert: My Grandmother

A dismissed employee wanders through the labyrinthine world of state administration in search of a new job. He is promised help by an influential "grandmother" - a symbol of nepotism in a system that sustains itself but serves no one. In "My Grandmother" (Chemi Bebia, 1929), Georgian director Kote Mikaberidze unleashes visual fireworks: a wild, satirical reckoning with the authoritarian administrative mechanisms of the young Soviet Union.

What begins as a bureaucratic grotesque develops into a stylistically unleashed mix of expressionist images, stop-motion elements and fast-paced montages. But behind the formal ecstasy lies the dark story of a person who loses her livelihood and has to realize that in the new system it is not performance that counts, but proximity to power.

"My Grandmother" was banned shortly after it was made because of its open criticism of the system and disappeared from public view for decades. Today, the film is considered a milestone of Georgian avant-garde cinema: a shining example of artistic freedom in the shadow of political control.

Director: Kote Mikaberidze
65 min, GSSR 1929, silent film with text panels in Georgian and English

Followed by a discussion with Thomas Thode, film critic

Live music
Bella Comsom - clarinet, electronics
Sebastian von der Heide - drums, percussion
Wolfgang Pérez - guitar, electronics

Moderation, text, organization and research: Lara Neuhaus and Demir Licina

Info and tickets: https://filmhaus-koeln.de/event/stummfilmkonzert-my-grandmother

The screening is the result of a cooperation project with the goEast film festival. Students from Cologne attended the festival and are now bringing two films to the screen at Filmhaus Köln.