CRASH: Cannes Heat at FOMO Cinema Tbilisi

FOMO Cinema Presents: CANNES HEAT

Summer has finally arrived, so FOMO is bringing CANNES HEAT to the big screen: a week of scandalous, divisive, seductive films that shocked audiences, split critics and turned desire into cinema history.

David Cronenberg | 1996 | Canada/UK | 1h40m | Presented in the original English audio with English subtitles

David Cronenberg’s CRASH is one of the most confrontational films of the 1990s, and one of the clearest expressions of the strange territory his cinema keeps returning to: the point where technology, desire, injury and alienation begin to collapse into each other.

Adapted from J. G. Ballard’s controversial novel, the film follows a group of people whose erotic lives centre around car crashes and damaged bodies. That premise alone made the film notorious, but this is not exploitation dressed up as art cinema. It's a rigorous, deeply unsettling film about people so numbed by contemporary life that they can only feel alive through impact, trauma and by taking extreme physical risks.

The Cannes reaction was ferocious. CRASH premiered in Competition in 1996 and immediately became one of the festival’s most argued-over films. Some critics saw it as empty provocation. Others recognised it as one of Cronenberg’s clearest statements about bodies, technology and desire. The jury awarded it a Special Jury Prize for “audacity, daring and originality,” which feels like the most Cannes way possible of saying: we’re not sure everyone should like this, but cinema needs films this strange.

The controversy followed it everywhere. The film faced censorship battles, tabloid outrage and calls for bans in several markets. Nearly thirty years later, it still feels difficult because Cronenberg refuses to tell the audience what to think. CRASH doesn’t ask for approval. It asks whether modern life has already rewired us more than we’d like to admit.

FOOD AND DRINK POLICY: FOMO Cinema Lounge Bar opens 1 hour before the first screening of the day and closes at 02:00,.serving a wide selection of beer, wine, cocktails, and non-alcoholic refreshments including coffee and tea, as well as fresh hot popcorn! Outside food is allowed in the bar but not in the cinema. No alcohol from outside allowed. All guests are invited to arrive early and stay late!

LOCATION: FOMO Secret Cinema, Bazari Orbeliani, Tbilisi. A five minute walk from Liberty Square metro.

HOW TO FIND FOMO: Enter Bazari Orbeliani via Atoneli St above Carrefour and take the stairs on your left to Level 1. Signage on the door. You can also check our Instagram story highlights for a video showing exactly how to find us:
https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlig