After the death of his father, the taciturn teenager Gonga begins to hang out with his older cousin Bart in a junkyard in the suburbs of Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. When they find a suitcase of rusty crosses, Bart decides to make illuminated crucifixes to sell door-to-door. The two companions traverse the city and encounter a host of colorful characters.
If the film starts in a dump—a metaphor for the uncertain state of the two main characters—it then leads them to wander through the Georgian capital in search of repair. Their journey, marked by truculent attempts to sell useless crosses to people whose homes already overflow with objects, allows for a slow, sensitive mourning. A tender portrait of masculinity which is still all too rare.
“The film, part city symphony, part docudrama, offers plenty of style and finds substance in unusual places.”
Rory O’Connor The Film Stage 28/11/2024
Golden Leopard - Cineasti del Presente - Junion Jury Award - Cineasti del Presente, Locarno International Film Festival, 2024, ch
Best Director, Asia Pacific Screen Awards, 2024, au
Tato KOTETISHVILI
Tato Kotetishvili is a Georgian director and cinematographer based in Tbilisi. After graduating from Poland’s Łódź Film School, Kotetishvili served as a cinematographer for numerous short and feature-length films before making his directorial debut with Watermelon (2012), which won Best Fiction Film at the 2012 Krakow Film Festival. Holy Electricity is his first feature-length film.
