'I think it completely changed my life'

David Koberidze as Irakli in Dry Leaf. Aleksandre Koberidze: 'I knew for this film, I needed someone or who, on one hand, can be happy in front of the camera, but on the other hand, support me more than anyone else' Photo: Aleksandre Koberidze, New Matter Films

Since its world premiere at Locarno Film Festival back in summer, Dry Leaf has been enjoying a strong festival run, including stop-offs at New York, Toronto and London among others. It’s certainly one of the most stylistically unusual films from the past 12 months, having been shot by Aleksandre Koberidze entirely on a Sony Ericsson mobile phone, which gives the whole film a hazy, dreamlike edge. The plot follows a father, Irakli (the director’s real life dad David), as he goes on a road trip across the country looking for his missing photographer daughter who has been on a personal mission to visit football pitches. The result is a contemplative journey that is as much about enjoying the landscape as it is narrative.

Taking questions from the press in Locarno, alongside his dad David and brother Giorgi, who wrote the score, the writer/director said the impulse to make the film, after the highly successful What Do We See When We Look At The Sky? stemmed from the fact that he had been working with a bigger team on that and he was “somehow missing” working alone, although he admitted, “It’s also the other way around, when I work alone, I miss working with people”.

He added: “So then I understood it would be good to have this kind of pattern, one film alone, one for with other people, one film alone, and I think that's how I see my future.”

Aleksandre Koberidze: 'I understood it would be good to have this kind of pattern, one film alone, one for with other people, one film alone, and I think that's how I see my future' Photo: © Locarno Film Festival / Ti-Press

Speaking about the Sony Ericsson, he recalled he bought the phone in Berlin back in 2009. He added: “It’s a Sony Ericsson W595 and this gadget became very important for me. I think it completely changed my life. I don't know if someone who created it knows that he did it because with this thing I learnt to make images”.

He added: "We had two really long shooting blocks, in summer and autumn 2022 and then again summer and autumn 2023. We would normally choose a region of Georgia and say, ‘Let's go there’. My biggest challenge was that near the beginning I decided that I did not want to plan where exactly we would go. So we really had the first address destination and, from there, we would behave as the characters, just ask for football fields, and that would define our destination the next day. Georgia is very small so it's really comfortable, in that sense, you can easily not plan because you can’t go too far.”

Koberidze says that casting his father was one of the first ideas he had when he was also deciding that he wanted to make a road movie.

He explained: “I knew for this film, I needed someone or who, on one hand, can be happy in front of the camera, but on the other hand, support me more than anyone else.”

Koberidze’s films are, in general, a family affair, with his brother Giorgi also providing the music. On collaborating with his brother, Giorgi said: “I think our process was really special because we had the opportunity to go to our summer house for one month. I was scoring in one room, in the other room Sandre was editing so we were really cooperating side by side and, for sure, it was much more work in terms of time, but this was probably crucial in creating the music.”

One of the key elements of the film, which is lent an additional whimsical air by Levan, who accompanies Irakli on the road trip but who is invisible on the screen, is football.

“There’s a big question with football for me. It’s something from deep childhood and I can’t really explain why this very simple thing can become so emotional. What I really like is that, as kids, we could just put two T-shirts and set up some rules that here are the borders and then the magic starts and everyone gets crazy and emotional, and happy and sad. And as soon as we say it's over, then it's over, and I never understood what makes us so happy or sad because when it's over, you completely forget.

“It's the same for me when I watch football. I get so nervous, like with very few things in my life, but when it's over it’s over.”