Let us give thanks: for children skipping and laughing, for curious dogs and special jam, for weathered gates and dappled sun, for ancient trees and the sparkling, omnipresent river.

In Kutaisi, one of the oldest continually occupied cities in the world, a stranger picks up a dropped book, and bang: Lisa and Giorgi, a pharmacist and a soccer player, are in love. Without even exchanging names, they make plans to meet the next day, only to be kept apart by fate—or a curse. A seedling on the street warns Lisa, a surveillance camera and a rain gutter try to explain, and the wind calls out but cannot get through with the most important part: that Lisa’s and Giorgi’s appearances will change completely. The lovers wait and wait for each other. Each is drawn day after day to the café by the bridge where they had set their rendezvous. With new faces, they find new lives. In time, however, when filmmakers scour the town for perfect local couples, it seems that chance is not quite finished with Lisa and Giorgi.

An official selection at the Berlinale and New York Film Festival, this humanistic work turns on a spell cast on two lovers in an ancient city, and the film too casts a spell. Time functions differently inside it. Whether it is roommates washing dishes, children practicing violin, street dogs amiably bickering, or a café proprietor setting up a projector to beam the football match, Alexandre Koberidze generously lets life happen in his unhurried shots. The film invites magic and purity into our everyday without a hint of irony or glibness. With hints of Fellini, Kiarostami, and Chaplin and a gaze that is child-like but in no way childish, Sky is a slow, sweet journey to the heart of cinema. (Martin Schwartz)

(Alexandre Koberidze, Germany & Georgia, 2021, 151 min, in Georgian with English subtitles)
Still images courtesy of Grandfilm.

“Movies can truly be anything, and the beauty of Alexandre Koberidze’s lyrical and ineffably romantic What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? is how it reminds us of that — time and again.” – David Ehrlich, IndieWire (“Critic’s Pick”)

“Marvellous, mischievous…Is there an opposite to the Evil Eye? If so, that’s the gaze in What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?” – Jessica Kiang, Variety

“The fable-like feel of What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? is never broken, which makes its final moments surprisingly touching and heartfelt.” – Odie Henderson, RogerEbert.com

“Great films often feel like a secret you’ve been told, and that’s how it is with Alexandre Koberidze’s What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?, a gorgeous modern fairy tale about ill-starred love, mysticism, soccer and street dogs, which is also perhaps the most bewitching love letter to a hometown that I’ve ever seen.” – Jessica Kiang, The New York Times

After studying Economics and Film Production in Tbilisi, Alexandre Koberidze relocated to Berlin, where he studied Directing at the German Film and Television Academy (dffb). His first, successful short films appeared during his studies, beginning with Colophon, which was critically acclaimed at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival. His first feature film, Let the Summer Never Come Again (2017), received a number of awards worldwide, including the Grand Prix at FID Marseille.