Cannes Conversations — Elene Naveriani on their stealth punk heroine

In their sophomore feature BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD BLACKBERRY, Georgian-born filmmaker Elene Naveriani tells the story of a middle-aged virgin in a small Georgian town who dares to start living the life she feels like leading — gossips and the patriarchy be damned.

Naveriani tells host Rico Gagliano about the movie’s big little moments, its “instinctive feminist” hero, and what powdered soap says about Georgian society.

Every May, the population of sleepy Cannes, France triples — as film pros and cinephiles from around the globe convene for the two-week movie-thon called the Cannes Film Festival.  For the fourth season of the MUBI Podcast, we sent host Rico Gagliano into the eye of this celluloid storm, accompanied by an intrepid camera crew, to grab interviews with a cross-section of filmmakers who made Cannes 2023 one of the most celebrated in years.

Guests include legendary director Wim Wenders, perennial Cannes favorites Kleber Mendonca Filho and Monia Chokri, and a slew of new filmmakers destined to be world cinema's next wave — from Belgian hip-hopper-turned-auteur Baloji to New York's wry boundary-smasher Joanna Arnow.

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To stream some of the films we've covered on the podcast, check out the collection Featured on the MUBI Podcast. Availability of films varies depending on your country.

MUBI is a global streaming service, production company and film distributor dedicated to elevating great cinema. MUBI makes, acquires, curates, and champions extraordinary films, connecting them to audiences all over the world. A place to discover ambitious new films and singular voices, from iconic directors to emerging auteurs. Each carefully chosen by MUBI’s curators.

Transcript

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Heads up, audio listeners, you're about to hear a videotaped conversation. For the full experience you'll find a video version of this episode on Spotify or YouTube. You've also said that movies were a way that helped you kind of learn to be the woman that you wanted to be, that you found role models in films. And I'm curious, which, is there one movie that stands out? Or one character that stands out that really made you go,"That's who I want to be." Okay. First first of all, I would say that it's more unlearning, than learning. I think that it's like, it takes more time to unlearn the things. That is, filmmaker Elene Naveriani. Originally from the country of Georgia. And yeah, their new movie is all about a woman unlearning the ways she's always been told she should behave. It's the story of Etero, who runs a small town grocery store. She's an unmarried, middle aged virgin, which already makes her the subject of local gossip. And when she suddenly launches an affair with a married guy named Murman, she's really got to figure out what she wants. Gossips and society be damned. I'm Rico Gagliano. This is the MUBI Podcast. Welcome back to our special season of Conversations from the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. This is episode five, Elene Naveriani talking about her film <i>Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry</i>, and about the film that inspired her to make movies in the first place. It's a film of it's a, <i>Miracle in Milan</i>. It's Vittorio De Sica. It's like Italian neo-realistic film, and I think that when I watched it, I was ten years old and I remember like how I felt that it was something very, very, I felt that it was... Cinema was made like also for me. And it was also made for everybody. And that's what I felt it, I could do this, you know, afterwards. What about it struck you? It's it's a story of like you have like very tiny village and you have extremely diverse people living there. And it's a poor village. And you have really like the physical differences you have like identity differences and like how they can co-co co-live together and what's, how they kind of try to live together. And also unlearn and learn the things, you know. You're almost describing your films. I mean, like these are literally some of the things that are in your films. They are set in small villages. I mean, I think I'm trying...- That was the blueprint for you.- Yeah, it was.- That's fascinating.- Yeah. But then, okay, so then a few years ago, you read this book,<i>Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry</i> tell me, take me back to the moment that you read the novel and like where you were, what was happening in your life. And like the moment where you kind of go,"This is my next film." So I was in a plane, so I was just like, I recorded ADR for my other last film before that one.<i>Wet Sand</i>... And I just bought a book. I knew that I had a long flight to get back to Geneva, and I read the book. I know how it goes. And really, like I finished it in 4 hours and I already had, when, the first page that I read, I knew that... I mean, who I wanted to work with as an actress. I knew that it's, I could make something out of it. Right away, when I landed, I wrote to the authorities like, I have an idea. What do you think about it? And she's like, "Why not? Just do it." And really like super quickly kind of everybody really got on board. Then we really, very fast kind of pace. We just managed to do it. How fast from the moment you touched down to when you started rolling camera?- A year and a half.- So not right away. I want you to tell me like a month. No, no, really. I mean, come on. It still takes time, right? I mean. But the inspiration was, like, instantaneous, like you.- Absolutely.- You were into it? What happens on that first page that makes you go, "This is it." Basically, like, what is interesting, that novel it's written in the first person. It's you, have a monologue of the character. So it's like she talks to herself all the time. So it's, and what I felt and what was really inspiring, it's... I don't know, it's, this way in like how she thinks and what she says to her self was very familiar to me. Also like the struggle with yourself that you know what you want to do. But there is this like a bad voice, it tells you that maybe you shouldn't because there is I don't know. You have a neighbor, you have a mom, you have this... You know, it's like a lot of things that is kind even, kind of censoring your own self. And I was like, this is amazing because we all go through like, it doesn't matter like what gender you have, whatever you like. You know, it's something that we learn to be like that. We kind of we also like not letting ourselves to be who we want to be because of this kind of oppressed or kind of repressed, like society, let's say. So that was like a, that's what inspired me. Let's talk about this character. She, you've called her an instinctive feminist. What do you mean by that? So what I mean, it's something that there is a moment in your life that you learned about things. I mean, and your naming, right? I don't know. It's like, you know, that okay, being a feminist, it means this and this and this and this. And I think that for me, it's this that Etero, what she has, it's, she doesn't really... uh, how can I say, intellectually kind of naming herself or she doesn't really do something because it's feminist, or it's something that she's, she's defending the minorities or something. She's not really like a consciously, I would say like... She's not identifying herself with any kind of concept. But there is something that she has it, and instinctively she goes against this flow. She never learned this, but she has it. She has it. And it's kind of, you know, throughout the process, it's like it... you feel that it's it just kind of awakening. Yeah, there's like, there are moments where it almost seems to burst out of her. There's a scene that really got me early on in the film where she she goes to a cafe and she's eating alone, and she orders like a pastry or something like that and a man like remarks that she looks like she's single or something. And she says, so do you remember? It's something like... If dicks and marriages made women happy then they'll be a lot more happy women. Exactly, yeah. And it comes like, you don't expect it at all to come out of her. And yet it does.- This is kind of what you're talking about.- Yeah. I mean, it's also like, I think that this instinct to, and this comes from the understanding your context, or place where you live. And she sees her neighbors, she sees like people around her, all the women, and she feels and she knows that they are not happy. And it's really something that it's, they told her that, okay, you know, you need to get married, you have to do this. And it's like, I don't know, it's like, okay, this will make you happy. It's it's obviously, it's not.- She's a punk, basically.- She's a punk. I mean, I'm happy that you're saying that because for me, she's extremely punk. Because when I was writing the story, I was really, I mean, that's something that I also, I'm working, that when I write, I always have the soundtrack. And it's it's extremely, and we have also in the film the Georgian punk musician. Like there are like few soundtracks that it's written by him and it's really like what I wanted to feel and how she feels inside. It's extremely punk. I mean, really like this noise that it's, she carries, it's-it's- yeah, it's punkish.- Yeah. She's very punkish, which is also, I mean for people who haven't seen the movie, she doesn't look it. Like, she doesn't look the part which is almost the point I guess... Yeah, absolutely. That's also appearance, right? I mean you don't need to appear, like, just be the way, I mean how you look, I mean the physicality doesn't say much. It's everything. It's kind of, oh, what is inside. But let me, speaking of physicality, the way, so she has the sexual relationship, the sexual awakening. I know that you've said that kind of the sensuality, her sensuality as an older woman, as like a larger woman is important to you, but you've also decided to shoot it in this way that's a little step back from it. It's not like, I wouldn't call this a sultry movie. It's a little bit distanced from it. Why did you choose to do it that way of kind if part of the point is that she is like a sensual person? I think it's a way how I see the, I don't like to be too, too close to things. I also feel that I'm standing behind a camera. I also take a distance. I'm not, of course. I mean, there is a character, there's a film, and it's, I'm telling this story, but I'm still someone who is kind of, you know, we have still kind of distance between each other. And I prefer to give more context and to put this in a context and not to just really get too close to the, I don't know, something spectacularity, which I would say I prefer that it's... I don't know you, you can also feel what you want to watch what you want to you know, which part of the image you kind of choose to to look at. And it's not directing that,"Okay, this is what I want to show you." I will say it is a movie of details. Absolutely. And I always in movies like this, I always loved to have a director tell me what is, I like sending the audience into the movie with the director telling them, "Here's a detail that I really love that you might miss." So what, do you have one in mind? Like something you're particularly proud of? A little thing that's in there. I'm proud of a lot of things and little details, I would say. But there is there is one that it's... When they have a first meeting in a, in a shop and and Murman the guy comes back. Her lover, her lover to be. They're not lovers yet. And they're like he invites her on a date and they have the hands kind of you have like, how he's really trying to touch her hand. It's really, it's extremely, like almost you don't see it.- Because, you know...- I missed it. It's a wide shot, but it's something that really says a lot. And I think in a film, they're really this really it's tiny, tiny details and the gestures that I also enjoy, too, when I'm directing. And it was also fascinating with two of them. Of all of them actually, that it was not about, okay, let's make a scene. It was about really, that really like milimeters, okay, just let's try, you know this this tiny gesture. It's maybe unnoticeable, but it says a lot about everything. I will confess I know little about Georgia. Is there something about this movie that you would say is, like, essentially Georgian? You no longer live there, I'm aware. But you've made many of your movies about Georgia. And is there something like an attitude or I mean, even if there's... I kept thinking, I wonder if the products in Etero's shop were chosen for a specific reasons because you remember them from Georgia or things like that. Yeah, they were chosen for for specific reasons, because also in the regions, in the villages you have very different products. So they are also like a very weird products that you know, like why people are using this, you know, somehow it looks quite toxic. I don't know, like soap that is colored, that it's like, I mean, you never going to wash yourself with this, you know? I mean, it's also I would say that this toxic, toxic kind of, the product, it's also what is very part of Georgian identity. It's like a toxic relationships something that, what they, what she has also with the neighbors. That's something that you are a friend but you don't really understand why you're friend, you don't really know why you go back to this place. You don't know why you celebrate, you know, together the birthday of the guy that he's not even showing, showing up on a birthday. And it was interesting, also, the people that are not from this culture very often, I mean, when we had the feedbacks during the editing, who like "Why does she why..."she's friends with these people. You know, they're super nasty. They're really assholes."- I'm sorry for my language, but...- It's okay. But in the end it's that that's how it works because you are kind of trying to integrate in a place that you have around. So you don't have also, ok, why I don't want to be there because if if I'm not going to see them, it's somehow I feel lonely. But, I like to be alone. But I also want to be kind of, you know, part of this group. And I think this toxicity and this kind of talking back to each other or kind of something bad about each other, it's something very... kind of characteristic to Georgia.- Maybe it won't be taken in a nice way...- Hey... Well, that's it. This may be why I related to it because what you've just described is very similar to Los Angeles, California. Well, maybe it's everywhere like that. I mean, maybe this also general kind of like a order that we what we live in. Yes. It's a very universal theme, if you like. You've chosen, you no longer live in Georgia, you live in Switzerland. Why Switzerland? Oh, God, this is a very long story, but I will say it short. How much time do we have? This will be our last... This will be our last answer. No, I say like when I was, I was a painter before. I mean, I wanted to be a painter. So when I finished my art school, I was, I really wanted to leave. It was a war with Russia. So it was something that was really like a huge, the political kind of chaos as it is always, and it is now again. I just didn't want to stay there, so I just send out my applications to a lot of countries. I was refused everywhere and only Switzerland, who said like just come, come and like you can pass your interview like in art school. So I got accepted. So I went to Switzerland and <i>voila</i>! Well, let me ask you, as a final question, do you imagine ever going back to Georgia'cause there's still a tenderness in your movies towards this country as much as you've just said some fairly negative things. I think it's, I still feel I go very often there and I think it's something that it, it gives me a lot of love and lots of also passion and a lot of pain as well. And I think it's a... I think it's something that it's so very important for me. And I think it's going to be important because I feel that I'm extremely rooted in there and something that I carry and I want to tell how I feel, it's... You know, I'm Georgian and it's where I live now. I feel really embraced in Switzerland. It's really like I am way how I feel there and what I do there. It's... I'm very grateful. And I see this kind of like a privilege that I have. But I don't know, it's I was thinking, like, will I be able to make a film somewhere else, which I would love to try, but I don't know because it's something that it's, if I don't feel it really here, I cannot really, you know, take it out and just to tell others. Elene Naveriani,<i>Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry</i> is their new film. While you wait for it, do check out their debut feature, <i>Wet Sand</i>, another lovely film about the bright and dark sides of small town life. It's streaming on MUBI in the U.S. and elsewhere. Check the show notes of this episode for details. Meanwhile, this episode of the MUBI Podcast was written and hosted by me, Rico Gagliano. Ciara McEniff produced along with Elodie Fagan and Josefina Perez-Portillo. Mustafa Koca edited the show, and Michelle Cho is our supervising editor. Yuri Suzuki composed our theme music. Our camera crew in Cannes included Cédric Hazard, Alice Desplats, Rob Godfrey, Solal Coulon and Mathis Toti. Special thanks to MUBI's additional team in Cannes, Eric Issenberg, Sam Leter and Ilyass Malki. This series is executive produced by me, along with Jon Barrenechea, Efe Çakarel, Daniel Kasman and Michael Tacca. And of course, to stream the best in cinema, head over to MUBI.com to start watching. Next episode, Belgian rap star turned filmmaker Baloji on his debut feature <i>Omen</i>. It won him the new voice prize at Cannes. Till then, go watch some movies.