Selected Press
‘The complex interplay of very different filmic styles in ‘Xitana’ is partly a registration of this doubleness. There is certainly a Pasolini-like element of celebration of the premodern, especially in an ecstatic sequence where the climax of the race is intercut with nightvision shots of bones in a cave. But rather than Pasolini’s static theatrical shots, Medoidze employs some of the language of avant-garde filmmakers such as Stan Brakhage or Owen Land; her shots are reworked with stop frames, superimpositions, colour filters – devices which insistently highlight the constructed element of this experience, even as they intensify it for the viewer. And in stark contrast to these moments we find the informal, almost video diary-like quality of other sequences, with the conspicuously handheld camera, offscreen commentary and the free hand pointing or gesturing.’Mike Sperlinger, Xitana, Projections Commissions at Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle
‘The endangerment of communal culture by the Internet and tourism underpins Sophio Medoidze’s Xitana, set in Tusheti in Northeast Georgia, a region recently connected to the world by the national government’s implementation of Wi-Fi. The film uses footage of Atengenoba, a traditional festival from which women are largely excluded (and which the artist must therefore shoot from a distance) to consider how progress and progressive principles are at odds with the indigenous cultures that Western tourists (and we can count artists and art audiences among them) are apt to fetishise.’
Ben Eastham, ArtReview Magazine
‘Let Us Flow: this mesmerising Georgian documentary combines the personal with the mythopoetic. Quietly weaving social critique into its visually arresting study of life in the Tusheti highlands of Georgia, Sophio Medoidze’s first feature marks her out as one to watch in a country whose cinematic output is increasingly admired in the West.’
Emily Maskell, Sight and Sound, British Film Institute, BFI
‘Sophio Medoidze follows the tradition of ethnographic surrealism, influenced by cinéma vérité and Maya Deren’s later films, problematising modernity but also successfully avoiding idealisation of village life. In the whole trilogy, Medoidze masterfully mixes everything from professional camera shots and phone footage to material filmed by body cameras of her protagonists, varying from wide shots of spectacular mountains to incredibly intimate closeups. Changing the shade of colour of the film is another way the artist toys with the atmosphere, adding the patina of indeterminate time.’
Inga Lāce on Sophio Medoidze. Let us flow! LUX
‘The viewer is placed within a space that can only be grasped through partial moments of contact and resonance. We are engulfed by something at the same time that we are deprived full access to it. In this way, the uncertainty with which we receive Medoidze’s images elicits a sense of intrusion and an unsteady excitement. Like riding a bike with no hands, the work presents a thrilling immediacy that always threatens collapse.’
Guy Mackinnon-Little, TANK Magazine
Let Us Flow review – a breathtaking documentary about gender and tradition
James Hanton, OUTTAKE
Let Us Flow – London Georgian Film Festival 2023
The Reviews Hub, London