Keti Machavariani
LULLABY
What happens when an immigrant has to face the sudden death of the old man she takes care of and realises she might lose her only source of income? Will she get through this challenge without betraying her values?
SYNOPSIS
Ia, a 44-year-old Georgian translator, emigrates to Greece after her husband's death, leaving her young son behind. She cares for Michaelis, an elderly patient whose son lives abroad. The two form a bond across their shared solitude. When Oto, Ia's former lover, briefly visits Greece she allows herself one night of warmth – then returns to reality. Michaelis dies the following morning. Fearing she won't receive her final month's pay once his death is reported, Ia makes a desperate decision: she and her friend Rusiko pack the body in ice and wait for her salary to clear. When the money arrives, Ia contacts Yannis and arranges the funeral with help from her godson and his doctor fiancée, who quietly handles the paperwork.At the graveside, M's friends give Ia an envelope – money Yannis insists she keep, believing his father died happy in her care. Offered Laima's old caregiving job, Ia accepts. When she asks whether their struggle has any heroes, she receives no answer. Ia walks away...
DIRECTOR
Keti Machavariani
WRITER
Keti Machavariani, Nene Kvinikadze
PRODUCER
Effie Srobola
CO-PRODUCER
George Kyriakos, Costas Labropoulos, Vassilis Tzanidis, Sopo Basgadze, Constantine Lusignan, Guka Rcheulishvili
PRODUCTION COMPANY
View Master FIlms (Greece), Vineyard Films (Georgia)
COUNTRIES
Greece, Georgia
GENRE
Fiction
Keti Machavariani
DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY
Keti Machavariani was born in Tbilisi in 1972 and graduated from the Film Directing Faculty of the Shota Rustaveli Georgian State University of Theatre and Film in 2002, and completed an internship at RAI TV in Rome, supported by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Her debut feature film, Salt White (2011), had its premiere at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, screened at the Busan International Film Festival and the Montreal World Film Fesival, and won several international awards. Her documentary Sunny (2020) premiered at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, where it received a Special Jury Mention, and screened in competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival in 2021; during its development it was supported by the IDFA Bertha Fund and selected for ParisDOC and Baltic Sea Docs. Machavariani’s work in both fiction and documentary is rooted in close observation of Georgian society, marginality, and the quiet resilience of women. She has taught film at universities in Tbilisi since 2008 and is an active member of the Documentary Association of Georgia. Lullaby is her second fiction feature.
Lullaby is a tragicomedy about Ia, a Georgian widow and single mother who, despite her education and professional background, cannot support her child. She emigrates to Greece, joining one million other women who have unofficially left a country of just four million. Undocumented and unable to return home, she sets aside her identity as a language specialist to care for the elderly – defining her profession as her past. The film follows her daily routine, where routine and poetry co-exist, and where morality is tested in extreme circumstances. The elderly she tends to have a strong presence in this story. Together, they form a world of people trapped within four walls, struggling to preserve their humanity. Lullaby is the autobiography of many people. A story about invisible lives and deep feelings, it keeps the viewer on the verge of tears and laughter until the very end.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
Effie Skrobola
PRODUCER’S BIOGRAPHY
For over twenty years, Effie Skrobola has been working together with the producers’ team of the Athens-based film production company View Master Films (VMF). She has been initiating and leading films and television series for VMF as a producer for over ten years. Her aim is to support Greek films, producing and co-producing films that connect with the audience and co-creatingcontent she and VMF enjoy. Born in Montreal, Skrobola grew up between Canada and Greece. This split identity has made her seekto bridge these two countries. In 2019, she co-founded Mitos Productions, a production company based in Montreal, which specialises in the development and production of original content for new media (including apps and social media) in the fields of history and education, which has resulted in project inclusing the Routes app and podcast, the Instagram project The Flower of Smyrna, and the VR series Asteroid 57: Mnemosyne. In 2025, she I implemented the initiative View Master First Frame in order to empower female voices, to promote gender equality in the industry, and to give space to new talents.
PRODUCER’S STATEMENT
Lullaby is a story we can all recognize ourselves in - the quiet sacrifices we make for the people we love, whether they're near or far away. Ia's journey as a caregiver in a foreign country speaks to something universal: the loneliness of duty, the ache of distance, the tenderness that survives even in the hardest circumstances. The film has a slow-burn rhythm, letting Ia's world unfold gradually, trusting the audience to sit with silence. The narration is quiet, letting gestures and glances become the words. This restraint is, for me, the film's greatest strength — it never tells the audience how to feel, it simply invites them in. As a producer, I believe films that ask for patience and attention are the ones that stay with audiences the longest. Lullaby is one of those films. It is a lullaby in form as much as in name - slow, hushed, and deeply human.
Production company profile
View Master Films (VMF) is one of Greece's leading production companies. It was founded in Athens in 2010 by Giorgos Kyriakos in partnership with producer Costas Lambropoulos, a collaborator of Theo Angelopoulos, Costa-Gavras, and Martin Scorsese. Both Kyriakos and Lambropoulos are members of the European Film Academy with over thirty years of experience, specialising in original film, documentary, and television content for domestic and international audiences.
Where are we at?
TOTAL ESTIMATED BUDGET
1M €
NEEDED FOR COMPLETION
20.000 €
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