Dato Bakhtadze plays a forgotten film star in Supporting Role [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Ana Urushadze
fiche film]. Directed by Ana Urushadze, who was also behind Scary Mother [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Ana Urushadze
fiche film], the movie – selected for IFFR’s Tiger Competition – sees him fighting for another role and, incidentally, for all the people he left behind during his glory days. Including his son.

Cineuropa: Why were you interested in an actor whose best days, and roles, are behind him?
Ana Urushadze: That his best days and roles are behind him is really the character’s own perspective. He believes this about himself, and that feeling shapes how he sees himself and the world. As the story progresses, I think he begins to change his mind about it.

During the casting process, I was looking for a gut feeling that this was the actor I had to choose. To me, Dato brought the character to life right in front of me: he completely became Niaz. With contained minimalism, he conveyed the protagonist’s entire inner world. Even him simply standing in the shot made the scene work. He brought absolute dedication and professionalism to the role. I’ll say exactly the same about Nata Murvanidze, the lead in my first feature, Scary Mother, who now plays Niaz’s wife. It’s such a luxury and a privilege to work with actors like this.

You follow him for a week, but time plays tricks here – he comments on that as well. Is this long journey a summary of his entire existence?
I guess the overall sense of the film came before the story itself. From the beginning, I knew it needed to unfold over a long period of time. His inner struggle is manifested as an outer journey, and that length of time was necessary for him to undergo some kind of transformation.

He meets so many people along the way, but these encounters feel a bit eerie. There’s a dead bird and a woman with a disfigured face. Can you talk about drifting off into more dream-like territory?
For me, it’s really the main terrain because the central theme is all about becoming conscious. He first experiences this in a dream when he realises that he’s dreaming. He takes control of it by going where he truly wants to go and meeting those he truly desires to meet. In this case, it’s his son. Later, he does the same in real life. He figuratively and literally moves from the passenger seat to the driver’s seat in order to meet his son.

That’s exactly what Dato said he liked about the character. He mentioned something along the lines of, “The king is known by his court.” Niaz is defined by his surroundings: the world around him reveals who he is. This is also what makes his long journey so important. As you said, he meets many people, each reflecting a different part of his life. He reveals himself through them subtly.

In a way, it seems that his professional “failure” brings him closure.
It’s not the failure itself that brings him closure; it’s letting go of that failure and, in doing so, taking control of his life and his destiny. Eventually, this leads him maybe not to actual redemption, but to a lighter state, less constrained by his own worries and fears.

Do you like these kinds of imperfect characters?
I actually see every character here as perfect, but just carrying different kinds and sizes of baggage. In this film, the baggage had to be heavy, and the character needed to carry big traumas inside because the aim was to depict transformation and to show what happens when some of that weight is finally dropped.

Niaz doesn’t recognise the industry any more – you can see it in the first scene. Are you using some of your experiences here?
We come from a turbulent post-Soviet period. The early 1990s were unstable and traumatic in Georgia, and that time shaped how people relate to work, authority and change. Many people lost their jobs, and nearly everyone went through severe traumatic experiences. It was a period of almost no progress, but it prepared the ground for something new to emerge.

Because of this, there’s a drastic gap between the boomer and Gen Z generations that the actor and the director represent in the film. The gap between my generation and the previous one is not as wide. Still, the initial idea for the movie was inspired by an awkward encounter I once had with an older actor, who was offended that I was both the director and the scriptwriter. He told me I was “too ambitious” and rushed out of the room.