Film director Dea Kulumbegashvili was raised at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia. Depicting static frames and vast landscapes, sweeping skies and granular details of the earth, Beginning (2020) is a beautifully constructed tale of coarseness and sorrow in the life of a woman desperate to explore her own desires. Mastering non-verbal storytelling, Dea sets up a narrative of religion and bigotry, in which there is a possibility of starting anew. Forces of love and violence, both in familial, sexual and societal circumstances, are held in constant balance. Dea pairs visual beauty on screen with formal techniques that illustrate the abrupt nature of brutality. Find her talk on erotic tension, feminine guilt and the complexities of desire in Extra Extra n°18, written by Caitlin Quinlan.