If I only had to choose one, it would have to be this one. It’s the most beautiful film in my world. It certainly shaped me morally, musically, romantically. Otar made me fall in cinema. I knew him as a child in Russia, thanks to my parents. As he likes making his friends act for him, there I am, aged 17, playing Jean-Pierre Beauviala’s burglar son (Beauviala, inventor of Aaton cameras, of Cantar) in his Favorites of the Moon, and my life fell down on me. I wanted to do what Otar was doing. Make films. Otar the musician, the mathematician… When I later started working on my first short, Otar explained to me with sketches and drawings on a piece of cardboard (that I still have) movements in and out of frame, cuts… I can still hear his voice, like an oracle: “You’re not allowed to use the same shot twice!” It makes you want to go exploring.
(M.A.) Otar Iosseliani