Ariadna returns to her home in Georgia. She has lost her grandmother Medea, whom she calls Bebia, while on a modelling trip to London. To honour an ancient burial custom, she must traverse the picturesque Georgian countryside after the funeral together with enigmatic Temo in order to reconnect her grandmother’s soul with her body. Traveling through this distant and at times exhausting land of echoes, Ariadne is forced to confront Bebia’s complex and sometimes cruel influence on her not-so-distant childhood.

“Bebia” means grandmother in Georgian, and Soviet-born director Juja Dobrachkous’ relationship with her own grandmother served as the inspiration for this elegiac black-and-white drama. Embracing symbols and elements of Greek mythology, Dobrachkous, who is a recognised contemporary painter and a writer, has chosen to use herself as the base for her debut film. The film is saturated with textures and lights from the past, with teasingly heartfelt, intimate and archetypal characters and grown-up chatter overheard long ago.