Decolonizing Georgian Winemaking in Otar Ioseliani’s 'Falling Leaves' (1966)

• In Event: Art and Anti-Colonial Resistance in the South Caucasus

Abstract

In Falling Leaves (Giorgobistve, 1966), Otar Ioseliani creates an elaborate and often subtle system of mirror images between the opening documentary about traditional Georgian winemaking and the contemporary fictional plot set in a Soviet winemaking factory, revealing a troubling lack of continuity that devastates the very spiritual core of the nation. Similar to other Georgian filmmakers, like Georgi Shengelaya in Pirosmani, Ioseliani looks back to indigenous models of modernity, represented in the film by unique viticultural and winemaking practices and pre-revolutionary Georgian intelligentsia, as a moral alternative to the flawed Soviet system.

Author

• Elena Monastireva-Ansdell, Colby College