Elene Naveriani, Director of Directors’ Fortnight title ‘Blackbird Blackbird Blueberry,’ Charts a Woman’s Inner Growth

variety.com:

Ben Croll When director Elene Naveriani first read the book upon which “Blackbird Blackbird Blueberry” is based, they immediately recognized a whole community. “It was the story of my mom, the story of my aunt, the story of my neighbor,” Naveriani tells Variety. “I could name so many women around me that they were really going through the same interior kind of struggle, and I found it very important to bring this character to life on screen.” Playing in Directors’ Fortnight, “Blackbird Blackbird Blueberry” follows 48-year-old Etero (Eka Chavleishvili – the filmmaker’s first and only choice for the character) as she discovers her sexuality and enters into her first relationship later in life.

In the film’s startling opening sequence, shopkeeper Etero survives a brush with death, returns to her small corner store, and seduces the first man who walks in – having her initial sexual relation on a momentary whim.

Though Etero’s case is a case more of an outlier, the emotional baseline is certainly shared by all. “We all imagined ourselves dying, wondering how it will happen,” says Naveriani. “And sometimes you get to this edge where you realize you cannot go on with your routine.

And something kind of shows that it’s time to switch, and time to change.”  In Etero’s case, she begins a clandestine relationship with that first man who walked in, the amiable deliveryman Murman (Temiko Chinchinadze), while reappraising and taking stock of her own ambitions as the next chapter of her life opens.