27/04/2022 - In her feature debut homing in on the LGBTQ+ community in Georgia, Ketevan Kapanadze makes the case for staying in

It has been difficult for the LGBTQ+ community in Georgia over the past few years, with Tbilisi Pride having been cancelled in 2021 after violent clashes, and protests tainting the local premiere of Levan Akin’s And Then We Danced [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Levan Akin
interview: Levan Gelbakhiani
film profile], about two male dancers’ forbidden love. Which is why one could expect Ketevan Kapanadze’s documentary How the Room Felt [+see also:
interview: Ketevan Kapanadze
film profile] – screening at Hot Docs and zooming in on a group of female or non-binary friends finding some refuge in a local women’s football team – to be a loud, piercing scream of a movie. But it’s not; it “speaks low”, just like in that old Kurt Weill song.

It might have to do with the people whom Kapanadze chose to observe, not exactly taking to the streets any time soon. They hide away, inside tiny flats, creating the kind of safe space that almost makes you forget about the outside world. “Almost”, because you can still hear it, along with the confrontations and the hateful comments. When someone preaches, “The LGBTQ+ propaganda needs to stop,” one of the characters just calmly folds her clothes. She has heard it all before, one assumes, and she knows that her mere existence is too much for some people to swallow. Living your truth, or just living, can be enough of a statement sometimes.

Kapanadze’s is an honest take on survival in some, or maybe most, countries in the region. There have been many films about young activists recently, but not everyone wants to fight, and not everyone is ready to experience violence again, even if it means leading a sheltered existence, as claustrophobia kicks in very quickly when watching this film. It reminded this critic of Bertrand Bonello’s House of Tolerance [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Adèle Haenel
film profile], or rather the atmosphere that it created – that of stuffy air, of muffled sounds and yet of a true kinship that can still be born within it.

Reviewers often say that a director “follows” their characters – it’s just what we do – but Kapanadze sits beside them instead, listening to their drunken reviews of John Lennon songs, fights, awkward compliments or the constant sound of someone exhaling cigarette smoke – actually, there is so much smoking going on that you might want to air your clothes afterwards. If anyone leaves this place at all, it’s to play football, but that doesn’t go so smoothly either, with salaries soon to be reduced and some players basically sabotaging their future.

Borrowing a line from Audre Lorde’s poem Suspension for her title – who, according to The Poetry Foundation, used to describe herself as “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet” – Kapanadze keeps things melancholic. Only a proper drink seems to blur the memories of entire families united in their hatred for their daughter, or their granddaughter, and even though this group clings to each other desperately, there is also plenty of hurt to go around. Still, Lorde, while also dealing with issues of race, wrote this at one time, too:
“I have been woman
for a long time
beware my smile
I am treacherous with old magic
and the noon’s new fury.”

Here’s hoping that this tiny, dysfunctional family, as well as so many others, will get a chance to step out into the sun.

How the Room Felt was produced by Salomé Jashi for Jashi Film (Georgia). Its world sales have been entrusted to Syndicado.