EL TOPO: Desert Visions Film Week at FOMO Cinema Tbilisi
Thursday 25. June at 21:00 - 23:05
FOMO Secret Cinema, Tbilisi
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.
EL TOPO
Alejandro Jodorowsky | 1970 | Mexico | Spanish with English subtitles | 2h05m
There are cult films and then there is EL TOPO.
When it first appeared in 1970, midnight screenings of the film became a phenomenon. Artists, musicians, filmmakers, and curious outsiders returned again and again to try and make sense of what they had just seen. More than fifty years later, people are still doing exactly the same thing.
On the surface, it's a western. A black-clad gunfighter crosses the desert with his young son and sets out to challenge four master gunmen. Very quickly, however, the film leaves conventional storytelling behind and transforms into something far stranger. Religious allegory, mysticism, philosophy, surrealism, violence, comedy, and dream logic all collide in a landscape that feels entirely untethered from reality.
Trying to explain EL TOPO is a little bit like trying to explain a dream. Individual scenes remain vivid long after the film ends, but the experience itself resists easy interpretation.
I've paired it with DJANGO because together they tell a fascinating story about the evolution of the western. Where in DJANGO Corbucci drags the spaghetti western genre into the mud. EL TOPO sends it into the desert in search of enlightenment.
Whether you find it profound, baffling, ridiculous, or revelatory, one thing is certain: there is nothing else in cinema quite like EL TOPO.
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
FOMO Secret Cinema • Bazari Orbeliani, 0105 Tbilisi, Georgia
