April, a haunting drama about the world of underground abortions

Déa Kulumbegashvili’s second film April requires your uncompromising attention. The director, Luca Guadagninohas returned with a piercing but poetic abortion drama set in Georgia. But while current abortion films – like happening (2022), Ninja baby (2021) and Never rarely sometimes always (2020) – have addressed the issue of abortion from the perspective of the patient, Kulumbegashvili draws attention to the service provider.

April follows Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili), a hospital obstetrician by day, but at night she travels to rural Georgian villages to perform forbidden, life-saving abortions. When she is accused of negligence as a gynecologist following the stillbirth of a baby, Nina is investigated and whispers about her nighttime surgeries grow louder, endangering her job and her safety. “In a way, this film is about the profession of a gynecologist,” Kulumbegashvili tells me before the film’s screening The London Film Festival 2024. “We understand what gynecology means, but there is so much room for interpretation that denies women the right to their bodies.” However, abortion is not banned in Georgia. April stands in the shadow of the Georgia government’s brewing anti-abortion stance, where increasing restrictions pose a deadly threat.

With confidently patient extended takes that quickly evolve into Kulumbegashvili’s signature cinematic language, the birth process is captured in its entirety while an abortion takes place off-screen, but Kulumbegashvili captures the rise and fall of a young woman’s abdomen with intense focus. Under Kulumbegashvili’s directorial vision and the confident cinematography of the talented cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan, the visible and the invisible collide with ricocheting tension.

Before the film‘s publication, KUlumbegashvili sat down with Dazed to talk about the making April She secretly shoots the abortion scene and why her film won’t be shown in Georgia.

April joins a recent wave of abortion dramas, and while these films revolve around the patient’s experience, they focus on the provider. What fascinated you about the perspective of a gynecologist?

Dea Kulumbegashvili: The Caregiver is a tour through the lives of various women. It wasn’t easy to build the character. I wanted to be very loyal to the people I met in hospitals, and they’re not very sentimental people and don’t show a lot of emotion, but you can tell they care. I wanted to stay faithful [so] I couldn’t create a character that was very emotional, and that’s a problem when you’re creating something for the screen. How can audiences connect with someone who doesn’t show a lot of emotion? You may not fully understand how to empathize with Nina, but you understand how to empathize with the situation or the patients. If you can’t do that, then perhaps the question for you is: Why don’t you feel anything?

In your debut Beginning And AprilThey implement these advanced settings which are somewhat static. What fascinates you about looking at these patient images as the first images in the film?

Dea Kulumbegashvili: The best film for me would be to just take a shot of looking, because there is no silence around us. We are so impatient. I read comments about my film like, “This is so pretentious, these nature shots.” At what point does the viewer decide, “I hate these flowers?” There is a concept of a Chinese garden that includes nature but also construction. If you stay there long enough it will never be quiet as the light is constantly changing. I’m a picture junkie, but sometimes I’m so overwhelmed that it’s important to stop and look at something.

Up to this point, the birth scene is so impressive and it must have been intense to have a chance to capture this moment. Walk me through the process of preparing to film this scene, which is emotive but also composed for your camera.

Dea Kulumbegashvili: I was in this hospital for a year and when I spoke to women who were about to give birth, all their thoughts were about the birth. For us it is very magical, but for doctors it is just routine. I didn’t want to emphasize anything dramatically because this is the most dramatic moment in life. I wanted to take a step back [while] Film because if you spend enough time somewhere you know how to film things without distracting people who have a more important job than you. So we built this partition in the room [camera] The team was behind it. Sometimes we take cinema too seriously, with too much complacency, and in the maternity hospital I learned to take a step back.

In these moments everything is reduced to the essentials. They shoot the birth and abortion scenes with a focus on the body, not the face. What was the idea behind it?

Dea Kulumbegashvili: When you go to medical facilities, the body is more important than the face, the body suffers the most. I want to work with people as a whole, not just close-ups of faces – I find cinema boring, going from one close-up to another. This is a different conversation about the demands of contemporary perspectives. There is so much demand for close-ups of faces and I refuse to do that because I don’t think that’s what cinema is.

There is a lingering anticipation of seeing a face in pain, but not seeing it seems more effective.

Dea Kulumbegashvili: Why do we have to see it? Sometimes not seeing is more important than seeing. Especially if women want to see this film, do we need to see the face of the woman having an abortion to show compassion? I do not believe that. And for men, it’s a good time to ask yourself why you want to see the face. Cinema should create questions. I reject the idea that cinema is something that provides a space for a relaxed experience.

I reject the idea that cinema is something that offers space for a relaxed experience

As a listener today, you assume you will get all the answers, but you don’t give them. Has that always been your approach to filmmaking?

Dea Kulumbegashvili: Yes, I’m angry because in our society and on social media there is always a demand to be on the right side of every moment of your life. We always think that when you post or like something you’ve done something good, but I just don’t believe that. I don’t want to make films that make viewers feel like, “I paid the ticket.” So I’ve already done something good.’ No, you didn’t. I don’t want to imitate someone’s good personality.

There are two real war conflicts going on right now, but if you go to film festivals [it’s as if] neither happens. It is an illusion of a world that does not exist. Is cinema a pure illusion? These are the questions that interest me, I reserve the right to examine these questions.

The Georgian government has taken a growing anti-abortion stance and recently backtracked on LGBTQ+ rights. But in response, Georgian cinema is flourishing; with AprilLevan Akins Crossing (2024) and Alexandre Koberidzes What do we see when we look at the sky? (2021) How do you see this moment in Georgia cinema?

Dea Kulumbegashvili: I spent a few years back home [in Georgia] during the pandemic and it was very tragic to see that not much has changed. There was an illusion of freedom. Well, that illusion doesn’t exist. Georgia finds itself in a strange environment of dictatorship, it is a hostile place for people who do not live in a conventional understanding of what a good woman is. Nina, for example, represents a kind of transgression.

Unfortunately, my film will not be released in theaters in Georgia and will not be positioned as a Georgian film at all. I did not receive any government funding. Everyone who worked on the film signed non-disclosure agreements and I kept the film top secret. Nobody knew I was going to make it because I wasn’t going to make it.

Even last week something incredibly tragic happened… [Kesaria Abramidze, a transgender woman, was murdered in her home a day after the country’s parliament passed a major anti-LGBT bill]. She was my friend and… [Kulumbegashvili takes a breath and wipes her tears]. We thought we were in a comfortable place where we could at least resist the government and have power as individuals. Honestly, I’m just afraid for my friends in Georgia.

I honestly believe that, in the best case scenario, there will be no Georgian cinema for the next few years. It’s the worst position you can be in as a director; Making films and feeling like you’ve created something that makes room for voices that aren’t heard but feel powerless. I’m not sure I can really make a difference as a director, especially in Georgia. There was a private screening of my film for the team, but a safe screening in the cinema is impossible.

There is a precedent for this: as Levan‘s film And then we danced (2019) was shown in Tbilisi, it was violently bullied.

Dea Kulumbegashvili: It was crazy. At that point, even I felt like it was just a marginalized group, not the majority. If I think that’s the majority, then why do we make films? Who do we make films for? I want to believe in my country, but at the moment it is very difficult. The government incites and promotes hatred. It’s very dangerous.

Your previous films are about Georgian women. Do you feel like you can still move on?

Dea Kulumbegashvili: I thought I would shoot my next film there, but that’s not possible. I go there and I have citizenship of another country so I can go, but then what about the people who work with me? It’s a bigger dilemma. It’s not just about making a film, but about what happens afterward. As a director I feel trapped. It’s not easy to understand how to make films without endangering anyone’s life, because I don’t want anyone to have any problems at all.

I have spoken to some very interesting actors and producers in the United States and there is a possibility that I can make a film with them. But it is also so important to me to include Georgian actors to create jobs. Suddenly cinema is more than just cinema.

April will screen at the BFI London Film Festival 2024 on October 11th and 12th.