THE KINGDOM OF DREAMS AND MADNESS Documentary Week at FOMO Cinema Tbilisi

FOMO Cinema Presents: The Art of the Documentary

A week of failed productions, obsessive directors and impossible shoots - this week at FOMO is dedicated to the underappreciated art of documentary filmmaking, and to the filmmakers stubborn enough to keep pointing the camera when common sense suggests they should pack it in.

THE KINGDOM OF DREAMS AND MADNESS

Mami Sunada | 2013 | Japan | 1h58m | Presented in the original Japanese audio with English subtitles

THE KINGDOM OF DREAMS AND MADNESS takes us inside Studio Ghibli at the exact moment when animation still looks like magic, but mostly turns out to be work, pressure, doubt, deadlines, and thousands upon thousands of drawings.

Mami Sunada’s documentary follows Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Toshio Suzuki, and the artists of Studio Ghibli over the course of a year, as the studio works on THE WIND RISES and THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA. It’s a rare portrait of one of cinema’s most beloved creative houses from the inside, not as a fantasy factory, but as a workplace shaped by routine, discipline, humour, exhaustion, and the very particular temperament of its founders.

Miyazaki is the film’s restless centre. He draws, smokes, complains, jokes, worries, and keeps working. Sunada doesn’t turn him into a saint, which is a relief. She shows the daily labour behind the softness and beauty of Ghibli’s images: the meetings, revisions, tensions, small rituals, and quiet persistence required to make films that later feel effortless.

Presented as part of FOMO’s Documentary Week, THE KINGDOM OF DREAMS AND MADNESS is cinema-on-cinema at its most intimate. After a week of failed productions, impossible shoots, director mythology, and filmmaking chaos, this film closes the program with something gentler but no less obsessive: the sight of artists returning to the desk, day after day, trying to make drawings breathe.

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/highlights/17933106294029235/