
One of the opening scenes of April from Dea Kulumbegashvili, has Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili) picking up a guy. Risky behaviour is in her life both personally and professionally, as someone who performs abortions in Georgia. She juggles that good work, presumably illegal in Georgia, while having a stable job as an OBGYN in a hospital. Her personal life and two professional lives mean driving and sleeping when possible, having some weird dreams. Performing abortions gets her in trouble in her hospital job in a film that examines Georgian gender dynamics.
April has a lot of these still life shots of Nina with furniture that make for makeshift operating tables. These shots fit in within the style of Romanian Neorealism back from twenty years ago, for better or worse. The better aspect of the visual language here shows the importance of the work and the steel mind that’s needed. A mind far away from her ex David (Kakha Kintsurashvili) or boss (Merab Ninidze) telling her what she can do. A mind in perpetual anticipation, a body that helps others.
There’s another interpretation of how this film sees Nia – that it represents her interiority as someone with uncertainty. That visual language also reflects the exurban / rural Georgia where she drives back and forth as she juggles jobs. April shows a back road and within seconds, she’s in the dark driveway leading up to an ER. ‘Seconds’, may be an exaggeration because meaningful movement in this film feels few and far between. Its attempts at poetic film language is obfuscating an otherwise wonderful message that needs clarity.
April also has a lot of long takes which either depict Nia’s real life or her banal, boring dreams. These dreams show landscapes of dark clouds threatening to rain over fields of flowers, as an example. I guess one can interpret these dreams reflecting real life conflict, or at least some alternate realities. She’s awake during the day but she never experiences it, nor does she experience colours on the outside world. This film is contemplative or tries to be which, in fairness, isn’t for generations who have no attention span.
Kulumbegashvili’s artistic tendencies aren’t for young viewers which may be our fault but that also may be the artist’s. Some shots here are necessary, like the places she works, but there are more that feel extra. Aside from the dreams, April also shows a monster as well as a long take of a penis, and there are a lot of fans of penises out there, even within us art film fans. But penises, just like most things, need to tie itself into the plot, and this film unfortunately doesn’t.
April is available to stream on MUBI, w-
- Rated: N-16
- Genre: Drama
- Release Date: 8/2/2025
- Directed by: Dea Kulumbegashvili
- Starring: Ia Sukhitashvili, Kakha Kintsurashvili, Merab Ninidze
- Produced by: Ilan Amouyal, Luca Guadagnino
- Written by: Dea Kulumbegashvili
- Studio: First Picture, Frenesy Film, MeMo Films