IRMA VEP: Cinephile Week at FOMO Cinema Tbilisi

To coincide with our hosting of the shnit worldwide shortfilmfestival (Aug 22-27), for the next two weeks FOMO is celebrating filmmaking itself. We’re screening a special program for cinephiles built around movies about movies. We’ll look at filmmakers, actors, movie obsessives, collapsing productions, Hollywood mythology, French and Persian New Wave, and the strange process of turning an idea into something that ends up on a screen.

Some films are about making movies and the people who dedicate their lives to them. Others are about the places where we watch them and why cinema matters in the first place. It’s our own small celebration of the people, chaos and obsession behind the movies we love.

IRMA VEP

Olivier Assayas | 1996 | France | 1h39m | Presented in the original French and English audio with English subtitles

IRMA VEP is one of those forgotten gems of 1990s French cinema that deserves a much bigger audience.

It begins with a film production that already feels like it’s coming apart. Maggie Cheung arrives in Paris to star in a remake of Louis Feuillade’s silent serial LES VAMPIRES, cast as the black-clad criminal Irma Vep. Around her, the crew argues, the director unravels, and everyone seems to have a different idea of what French cinema is supposed to be.

Cheung plays a version of herself, which immediately destabilises the film. She's both actress and character, outsider and centre of attention, moving through a production where admiration, insecurity, artistic ambition and professional resentment constantly overlap. Assayas uses that instability to turn the set into a place where questions about cinema become deeply, DEEPLY personal.

The film is especially interested in what happens when one film culture looks at another. Cheung was already a Hong Kong major star, while the fictional French production around her seems trapped between nostalgia and uncertainty. The remake of LES VAMPIRES is meant to revive something old, but everyone involved seems unsure whether revival is possible or even desirable.

That makes IRMA VEP a perfect fit for our two-week celebration of filmmaking itself, running alongside FOMO’s hosting of the shnit Worldwide Shortfilmfestival. Across the program, we’re looking at directors, actors, film obsessives, collapsing productions and the strange process of turning an idea into something that ends up on a screen. IRMA VEP captures the confusion in the middle of that process better than almost anything else.

This one's for the cinephiles. It’s funny, restless and deeply affectionate toward cinema, even while questioning the institutions and traditions built around it.

We’re showing IRMA VEP alongside François Truffaut’s DAY FOR NIGHT as a double celebration of the wonderful art of French filmmaking. Truffaut looks at the communal madness of getting a film made. Assayas, two decades later, finds a film culture questioning its own identity. Together, they make a great pairing: one affectionate, one restless, both fascinated by the strange people and fragile systems that somehow turn chaos into cinema.

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/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE3OTMzMTA2Mjk0MDI5MjM1