Title: Gondola

Director: Veit Helmer

Year: 2023

Country and language: Germany and Georgia, no dialogue

Genre: Drama

Australian distributor: Bonsai Films

From MQFF: Iva and Nino are cable car attendants, each assigned to an orange cabin suspended high above the Caucasus Mountains, ever passing in opposite directions. Both have to fend off their ogre-like boss’s oafish overtures as they put their energies into devising ever more ingenious ways to advance their mid-air flirtations with one another. While it mightn’t contain dialogue in any conventional, verbal sense, Gondola nonetheless represents a gloriously cinematic fusion of sound and vision, melding an Amélie-like sensibility and stunning cinematography to winsome music from Malcolm Arison and Icelandic singer-songwriter Sóley. Nino Soselia and Mathilde Irrmann are note-perfect as the two cable-car attendants; their romantic airborne antics will give you all the lift you need, too!