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An apt alternate title for Bebia, à mon seul désir could well be Grandma, which of course was also the name of a Lily Tomlin-starring comedy from 2015. Indeed, ‘bebia,’ in its transliterated form, is Georgian for the word ‘grandmother.’ And if little else, amidst all the virtues and frustrations of this debut from Russian author and painter Juja Dobrachkous, there is no doubt that this is grandma-oriented filmmaking par excellence.

The slightly bathetic title Grandma rings true for another reason. Bebia, à mon seul désir is a film that treats a routine family obligation for a diffident, stroppy teenager––her grandmother’s funeral––as a mythopoeic battle of will. It’s not that the funeral is a formality––of course, it is an irreplaceable mourning ritual for her wider family. The issue is with Dobrachkous’ choice to frame it through this focalizing figure of the daughter, and the slightly opaque,...

Juja Dobrachkous on the girls in Bebia, À Mon Seul Désir: “Most of the actors were non-professional actors and I wanted this absolutely natural effect.”

Juja Dobrachkous’ debut feature Bebia, À Mon Seul Désir, produced with Olga Dykhovichnaya, and shot by Veronica Solovyeva in black and white, joins Amalia Ulman’s El Planeta and Jonas Bak’s Wood And Water as the third highlight of the 50th anniversary edition of New Directors/New Films that confronts a child’s relationship to a looming-large mother. Iva Radivojevic’s not-to-be-missed Aleph is the other early highlight.

Juja Dobrachkous: “I kind of enforced my structure with the Greek classical structure, which just enriches and makes it fun to write and shoot it.”

Told in two time strands, we see little Ariadna (Anushka Andronikashvili) interact with her surroundings and observe the strained dynamics at home. When 17-year-old Ariadna (Anastasia Davidson), now a model in London,...

There are many good ideas in writer-director Juja Dobrachkous’s feature debut, which is why it’s doubly frustrating she seems not to have had a strong counselor to help reign in all the self-indulgence. One can start with the title, “Bebia, à mon seul désir,” a famously ambiguous motto featured on a medieval tapestry which roughly translates to “to my only love” today: Why have a French title when the entire film is in Georgian and Russian, with no Gallic resonances (the tapestry is also never referenced)?

The story itself is great: A teenage model returns to Georgia for her horrid grandmother’s funeral, and is told she needs to follow an ancient ritual to guide the deceased’s soul from where she died to her burial place. Yet with the idea of prioritizing interior sensations, Dobrachkous employs frequent flashbacks and an at times exasperating mise-en-scène that frequently cuts off the tops of heads,...