Nana Dzhordzhadze - 27 Missing Kisses -2000- __link__

For contemporary audiences discovering on streaming platforms or restored Blu-ray, the film offers a refreshing antidote to sanitized teen dramas. It understands that puberty is not a polite montage but a riot of hormones, humiliation, and glorious selfishness.

(2000) is a hidden gem you need to rediscover. Set in a sleepy, sun-drenched town in post-Soviet Georgia, this "tragicomedy" blends magical realism with the bittersweet chaos of first love. A Summer of Eclipse and Obsession

But her primary obsession is a man three times her age: Alexander (Yevgeni Sidikhin), the brooding, handsome father of the boy next door. While Mikha (Shalva Iashvili), Alexander’s lovesick teenage son, watches her with puppy-dog devotion, Sybilla pursues the father with a relentless, unembarrassed passion. The film’s title refers to a promise: Alexander once told his wife that if he ever loved another, he would give her 100 kisses. Sybilla, counting every stolen moment, declares she will stop at 73—leaving 27 kisses missing, a space for possibility or ruin. Nana Dzhordzhadze - 27 Missing Kisses -2000-

Upon its release in 2000, 27 Missing Kisses polarized critics. The New York Times called it “a messy, overheated, but strangely beautiful fever dream.” Roger Ebert, ever the champion of eccentric cinema, praised its “fearless honesty about teenage desire.” Others found it problematic, uncomfortable, or simply too erratic.

Dzhordzhadze’s style is immediately recognizable: a love for the imperfect, the improvisational, and the wildly emotional. She has often described her filmmaking as “anti-professional” in the best sense—preferring the raw, unpredictable energy of non-actors or first-time performers over the polished restraint of veterans. By 2000, she had already honed a visual language that feels less like traditional narrative cinema and more like a stolen diary set to music. 27 Missing Kisses is the purest distillation of that aesthetic. Set in a sleepy, sun-drenched town in post-Soviet

If you enjoy lyrical, bittersweet cinema in the vein of The Dreamlife of Angels or The Virgin Suicides , seek out Nana Dzhordzhadze’s 27 Missing Kisses . It is a small film with a giant, beating heart.

The film is more than a coming-of-age story; it’s a vibrant, sometimes tragic, look at how a single "wild" presence can stir the dormant energy of a quiet community. It captures a specific moment in time where the personal and the political intersect in the heat of a Georgian summer. Have you explored other films from Georgia? If you are looking for more, Dzhordzhadze's A Chef in Love The film’s title refers to a promise: Alexander

Two decades later, the 27 kisses remain missing. But the film’s sting—that specific, beautiful sting of first love and first loss—has never faded. Seek it out. Let it burn.

"27 Missing Kisses" (2000) is a drama that revolves around the lives of two families, the Mikeladzės and the Chachualidzės, who have been intertwined for decades. The film's narrative is triggered by the return of Nikoloz Chachualidze (played by Zaza Matchavariani) to his family's home in Tbilisi after a lengthy absence. As Nikoloz reconnects with his loved ones and old friends, the film skillfully weaves together a series of vignettes that explore themes of love, family, and memory.