Dry Leaf (2025)

Shot beautifully with a 2008 mobile phone whose compression and contrast algorithms become a deep atmospheric thumbprint, Dry Leaf is drowning in absence—invisible people, events just off-frame, an elbow or the back of the head, open landscapes criss-crossed by broken fences, sounds without sources, erasing mist, forgetfulness, hollow rooms, distant subjects walking and talking, figures walking into anonymous darkness where the camera can't resolve the shapes of the trees in the forest.

…

And yet, clearer and clearer as time goes on, the film is defined by presence—things not announced or considered in the narrative preamble but found along the way. The stadiums become increasingly vestigial, both physically and narratively, and Irakli and Levani spend ever more time in silence. What we're left with is the full intensity of the landscape, animals, weather, and also the sparse people: an uncle with an offhand story about a captivating teacher; an old man renovating a village hall that used to be a packed cinema; kids whose football pitch has been turned into a building site, but who now play football “everywhere”. As the film draws to a close, Irakli, and perhaps we too, are gently chided for pursuing rigid courses of answers and reminded that the accidents and encounters of the road can be powerful and lasting, and emptiness can be part of someone's design.