Desert Visions Shorts - Religion, Apocalypse and Memory

June 23-28 FOMO presents Desert Visions, a journey through some of cinema's most unforgettable deserts. From Australian outback nightmares and American road movies to spaghetti westerns, Soviet science fiction, spiritual quests, and stories of people searching for meaning at the edge of civilisation. These are films about vast landscapes, strange encounters, reinvention, survival, and what happens when the familiar world falls away.

DESERT VISIONS: RELIGION, APOCALYPSE & MEMORY

Luis Buñuel, Kenneth Anger, Chris Marker | 1962-1972 | Mexico, UK, France | Spanish, English & French with English subtitles | Total Runtime: 1h42m

This is easily the most esoteric event in my Desert Visions Film Week and probably the one I'm most excited about. Rather than a feature film, Sunday's program brings together three short works that approach the desert as a place of visions, prophecy, revelation, and transformation.

17:00
Luis Buñuel's SIMON OF THE DESERT follows a Christian ascetic attempting to devote his life entirely to spiritual purity while the world repeatedly refuses to cooperate. It's funny, provocative, and unmistakably Buñuel. A film that manages to take faith seriously while simultaneously poking fun at it.

17:50
Kenneth Anger's LUCIFER RISING abandons conventional storytelling almost entirely. Ancient gods, occult symbolism, ritual, and myth unfold through a succession of unforgettable images accompanied by an equally hypnotic soundtrack. It feels less like a narrative film and more like a cinematic ceremony. The soundtrack was scored by Mick Jagger.

18:25
Chris Marker's LA JETÉE closes the evening. Built almost entirely from still photographs, it tells a story of memory, time, catastrophe, and obsession that has influenced generations of filmmakers. More than sixty years later, it remains one of the most haunting science fiction films ever made. It was also the basis for Terry Gilliam's 1995 sci-fi masterpiece 12 MONKEYS.

What connects these three works is their belief that cinema can do more than tell stories. Each uses images to create a state of mind. Together they form a journey through faith, dreams, apocalypse, memory, and the strange territories that exist between them.

I've programmed them as a single event because they feel like three different approaches to the same question: what remains when the ordinary world falls away and we're left alone with our beliefs, our fears, and our imagination?

For me, they form the perfect conclusion to the season. Three shorts that leave the familiar world behind and venture somewhere much stranger.

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