“Who was Medea before she had children?”
Inspired by the artist’s visit to historical cave pharmacy in Southern Georgia, and Roland Barthes’ idea of language as pharmacopoeia (‘poison on one side, antidote on the other’), the film conjures the figure of Medea through touch, and upturns popular representations of the goddess. In Medoidze’s carefully choreographed camera movements, fragments of the caves and her seemingly casual conversations are hauntingly juxtaposed, accompanied by Chanuri – one of the oldest string instruments in the Caucasus, nowadays rarely played. Constructed in Medoidze’s signature style of affective fragmentation, the caves are given feminine presence.
Produced by Association Le Cyclop, France.