“And Then We Danced,” A Queer Love Letter to Georgian Culture
The director Levan Akin’s coming-of-age story about a traditional dancer had just a three-day run of screenings in Georgia, where it led to rioting, twenty-seven arrests, and one hospitalization.
The Georgian folk dancer is an image of masculine stereotype. His movements are martial, virile; they simulate war, hunting, and the courtship of his beloved. Often accoutered with a double-edged dagger, he personifies the small, proud nation’s history and traditions. So when the Swedish-Georgian director Levan Akin arrived in Tbilisi to shoot the country’s first explicitly queer feature film, a coming-of-age story about a traditional dancer, he was met with not a little hostility.