CAMERA BUFF: 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.

CAMERA BUFF

Krzysztof Kieślowski | 1979 | Poland | 1h57m | Presented in the original Polish audio with English subtitles

CAMERA BUFF begins with an ordinary purchase. Filip Mosz, a factory worker in a small Polish town, buys an 8mm camera to record the birth of his daughter. What starts as a family hobby quickly becomes something much more consuming.

When Filip’s workplace asks him to film an official anniversary event, he discovers the strange power of deciding what gets recorded and what gets left out. His camera gives him access, attention, and eventually a sense of purpose he didn’t know he was missing. It also begins to change the way he looks at the people around him. Friends become subjects. Everyday life becomes material. The more seriously he takes filmmaking, the harder it becomes to separate the act of observing life from the act of living it.

Kieślowski had spent years working in documentary before making CAMERA BUFF, and that experience sits at the centre of the film. He understands the excitement of discovering that a camera can reveal something true, but he’s equally interested in the ethical problems that follow. Who has the right to be filmed? What happens when an image exposes something inconvenient? And how much responsibility does a filmmaker have for the consequences of showing what they see?

Years before THE DECALOGUE and the THREE COLOURS trilogy established Kieślowski internationally, CAMERA BUFF already contained many of the questions that would define his work: observation, responsibility, chance, and the uneasy possibility that looking more closely at the world can make life considerably more complicated.

It’s one of the defining films in our two-week program celebrating filmmaking itself. To coincide with FOMO hosting the shnit owrldwide shortfilmfestival, we’re screening films about the people who make movies, obsess over them, perform in them, and gradually allow cinema to reorganise their lives. CAMERA BUFF may be the most direct expression of that idea. Filip doesn’t begin as a filmmaker. We watch the obsession form in real time.

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