MISTER LONELY: Marilyn Monroe Tribute at FOMO Cinema Tbilisi

FOMO Cinema Presents: CANNES HEAT

I’m including MISTER LONELY in this week’s CANNES HEAT program as a tribute screening for Marilyn Monroe, who would have celebrated her 100th birthday this week. Monroe’s image became so powerful that it moved far beyond cinema and into global mythology. She isn’t just remembered. She’s performed, copied, revived and reimagined by people all over the world. So instead of showing a straightforward Monroe biopic, I'm showing a Cannes film about one of the countless people still trying to live inside the legend she left behind.

Harmony Korine | 2007 | UK/France/Ireland/USA | 1h52m | Presented in the original English audio with English subtitles

MISTER LONELY follows a lonely Michael Jackson impersonator living in Paris who meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator and follows her to a commune in the Scottish Highlands. There, a strange community of celebrity doubles lives together: Charlie Chaplin, Madonna, the Pope, Abraham Lincoln, Little Red Riding Hood and others, all trying to build a life from borrowed identities.

Harmony Korine makes this sound like a joke, then refuses to treat it as one. The film is tender, odd, damaged and frequently absurd, but never cruel toward its characters. These people aren’t simply pretending to be famous. They’re using performance as shelter, trying to find belonging through icons larger than themselves.

When MISTER LONELY premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 2007, it confused plenty of viewers expecting the confrontational chaos of Korine’s earlier work. Instead, he made something stranger and softer: a film about imitation, loneliness, celebrity worship and the emotional cost of turning yourself into someone else.

For a Marilyn tribute, that feels right. Monroe became one of the most reproduced images of the twentieth century. MISTER LONELY asks what happens to the people still living in the glow of that image, long after the person herself is gone.

Screening: 20:30 Saturday 6 June
FOMO Cinema Bazari Orbeliani, Tbilisi

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/