Georgian director Alexandre Koberidze is premiering Dry Leaf in Locarno’s international competition this week while setting his next feature in motion: Bilingual, a romantic mystery inspired by the Pet Shop Boys’ 1996 album. Variety reports the project as a German-French co-production with New Matter Films and Tripode Productions, following two parallel searches set in France and Georgia.
Dry Leaf runs 186 minutes and was shot on an old Sony Ericsson phone, a formal choice Koberidze and festival materials say suits the story’s drifting, time-scuffed mood. World sales are handled by Heretic.
The film follows a father crossing Georgia to look for his missing daughter, retracing her recent journey photographing rural football fields; he’s joined by the daughter’s best friend, an “invisible” companion whose perspective complicates the search. Koberidze casts his father, David Koberidze, in the lead, with Otar Nijaradze among the principal actors.
Dry Leaf is part of Locarno’s main competition running August 6–16, and its festival path is already expanding. The film is slated for TIFF’s avant-garde Wavelengths program in September and for the New York Film Festival’s Currents section later in the fall. Heretic released a teaser ahead of the premiere to support buyer interest.
Bilingual extends the director’s cross-border interests into a narrative that mirrors the album’s title: two strands, two languages, and two countries. Funding records list it as a New Matter Films and Tripode Productions collaboration backed by the Franco-German commission, signaling a European financing structure consistent with Koberidze’s recent work.
