PERSEPOLIS Marjane Satrapi Tribute Screening at FOMO Cinema Tbilisi

This week I'm celebrating actors, directors, editors and artists who are no longer with us, but whose work continues to shape the films we watch and love. Some became icons. Others worked quietly behind the camera. Together, they helped make cinema what it is today.

I'm showing PERSEPOLIS in honour of Marjane Satrapi, whose voice changed the way many readers and viewers understood Iran, exile, girlhood, rebellion, and political memory. This is a deeply personal work, but it never feels small. Satrapi turns autobiography into something generous, accessible, and completely her own.

💔 Join us to remember a true icon.

Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud | 2007 | France, Iran | 1h36m | Presented in the original French audio with English subtitles

"To regular people, dictatorial regimes seem invincible. But they are like giant sandcastles..."

PERSEPOLIS is one of those films that makes political history feel personal without ever turning into a lecture. Based on Marjane Satrapi's own graphic memoir, the film follows Marji as she grows up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, the Iran-Iraq War, and the years of repression that follow. We see history through a child’s eyes first, then through the sharper, more conflicted perspective of a young woman trying to understand where she belongs.

What I love about PERSEPOLIS is how much life it contains. It’s angry, funny, sad, stubborn, and wonderfully direct. Satrapi doesn’t treat politics as something abstract. She shows how it enters the home, the classroom, the body, the family dinner, and the private imagination of a child trying to become herself.

The animation is deceptively simple. Mostly black and white, built from clean lines and strong silhouettes, it gives memory a visual shape. The style lets the film move easily between realism, exaggeration, fear, humour, and fantasy without losing its emotional clarity.

If you've only ever heard of PERSEPOLIS as an important graphic novel or animated film, I hope you'll come and experience how alive it feels on screen.

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/