Georgia on your mind? Bozar is welcoming you

It is certainly a pity that cinemas rarely show films from Georgia and Ukraine. That is the overall message of Bozar's initiative Bridges: East of West Film Days.

Of course Georgian films can be enjoyable. Take for example What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?, the film that director and screenwriter Aleksandre Koberidze will present at Bozar. In a riverside town with scenery that makes you dream of a lazy summer holiday in Georgia, it is love at first sight between a footballer and a pharmacist's wife. The cuteness is there and you rejoice in their happiness, but the next day they both wake up in different bodies and they are no longer what they were. How are they supposed to recognise each other? Meanwhile, life goes on as usual, to the delight of the street dogs who appreciate the World Cup. The set-up seems far-fetched and it does not stop at one fantastic element. But if you can overlook silly interventions, an omniscient narrator and magical realism, there is a good chance that the inventive, humorous, romantic film will entertain you.

The fifth edition of Bozar's Bridges: East of West Film Days also offers some darker work. In Wet Sand by Elene Naveriani, Moe has to organise the funeral of her grandfather Eliko. He was found hanged in a village on the Georgian Black Sea coast that is not as sweet and tolerant as it pretends to be.

With This Rain Will Never Stop, Alina Gorlova takes the audience on a powerful, visually penetrating journey through humanity's endless cycle of war and peace. The film follows 20-year-old Andriy Suleyman as he tries to find a secure future while enduring the human suffering of an armed conflict.

From the Syrian civil war to the fighting in Ukraine. Kateryna Gornostai's deeply personal Stop-Zemlia is billed as a radical, authentic and sensitive insight into the awkwardness of being young and of Ukrainian youth.