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OC Media
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- OC Media
Air Blue Silk — a melancholy debut about social alienation in Georgia
Sign in or or Become a member to unlock the audio version of this article Join the voices Aliyev wants to silence. For over eight years, OC Media has worked with fearless journalists from Azerbaijan — some of whom now face decades behind bars — to bring you the stories the regime is afraid will get out. Help us fuel Aliyev's fears — become an OC Media member today Become a member 3.5/5 ★ Air Blue Silk focuses on two individuals living still, lonely lives in a city that is quickly and haphazardly being redeveloped before their eyes. Air Blue Silk (2024) is Tbilisi-born director Irine Jordania's debut fiction feature film; it premiered at the PÖFF Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in 2024. The film tells the story of two people living unrelated lives in Georgia's capital: successful TV presenter Eka (Tina Laghidze), a woman in her forties, and Niko (Lado Odiani), a younger male programmer bent on building an AI robot. Both live in near-total isolation, brought together fleetingly by a video art installation only to part again without saying a word. The first few scenes of Air Blue Silk show Eka on her way to the TV studio, driving a blue Range Rover and listening to an apparently infinite succession of voice notes from an older woman we later learn is her aunt. While not revealed in the film, the film's presskit specifies that the aunt is an economic migrant, living in some unnamed foreign country. The content of these voice notes is charmingly banal — in the first set, the aunt muses over the distinctions between ready-made and home-baked cakes; later messages describe in great detail a trip to the forest with her neighbour to pick mushrooms. Eka flicks through them impatiently, and starts ignoring them completely once she's sat in her makeup chair. Next, we meet Niko at his desktop computer, a tabby cat nuzzling at his feet. Niko doesn't have a single line in the film. Instead, his AI robot — a plaster head that sits on his desk, with a distended skull and large, blinking eyes, in short resembling a female alien — speaks for him in the garbled robotic vernacular of an AI-in-training. She has lines like 'I feel good', 'I exist', and 'You are cool'. Interestingly, Odiani actually built the robot for the film himself. Shots of the city are often filmed from Niko's perspective, particularly people-watching from his window. Tbilisi appears manic compared with the stillness of his apartment. Repeated shots of people getting on and off buses create a sense of futile, compulsive movement. Air Blue Silk was filmed during the COVID-19 pandemic, so many of the people in the street shots are masked. It conveniently accentuates the film's atmosphere of alienation. Advertisement A third of the way into the film, Eka and Niko sit silently next to each other in a gallery space in Tbilisi's Stamba Hotel, watching an animated piece by South African artist William Kentridge. These animated films are some of Kentridge's best known works, consisting of drawings that are filmed, partially erased, and then redrawn and filmed again, each shot lasting less than a second. Midway through, Eka receives a call informing her that her aunt has committed suicide. From that moment on, the film revolves through three principle shots with minor variations: Eka at home, prone on her sofa, listening to voice notes from her dead aunt; Niko at his desktop, programming his robot; and, finally, Tbilisi street scenes. The seasons are distinguished by shots through Eka's three windows: the trees lose their leaves and regain them, blossom appears, Eka remains horizontal and Niko remains at his desk. Jordania has a keen eye for the strange and the beautiful in her city. She's particularly concerned with the way it is changing — the camera lingers insistently on construction sites, of which there is no shortage of in Tbilisi. One gets a sense of the city being perpetually erased and redrawn, like the pictures in Kentridge's animated film. Hurried and resultantly unsafe urban development eventually resolves into one of the film's principal motifs. Air Blue Silk is a melancholy film, with fittingly blue-toned colour grading. The near-absence of dialogue can get a little testing, however, and comes at the expense of any real character development. The sad, silent scenes showing Eka on the sofa and Niko at his desk get repetitive towards the end, a finale which, though poetically coherent, fell a little flat. On the other hand, the protagonists' lack of speech is fundamental to the film's poetic structure: if Niko and Eka inhabit their solitude in silence, Eka's aunt — the invisible third in their isolated trio — reacts with compulsive talk. These are all failures of communication. After she has died, the voice notes that Eka continues to play come eerily from beyond the grave, like light from a dead star. It's as if the real dialogue of the film is happening at some deeper level, rising to the surface in symbols only: an incomplete world-map puzzle on Eva's living-room table speaks to an urge for wholeness; a plant that Niko finds in the street and brings home and nudges continually into a mobile beam of sunlight stands for his desire to participate in the world outside his window; the trees Eka passes on her hikes are numbered in chalk on their trunks as if directly threatened by the ever-expanding city. These three portraits of contemporary alienation — the successful older woman (who, we can infer, chose her career over family and friends), the young male computer nerd, and the elderly woman, separated from her relatives — were all insightfully chosen, and could have benefited from a little development. But Jordania took a commendable risk with this film, and a good deal of it paid off. Film details: Air Blue Silk (2024) by Irine Jordania. For our culturally curious readers: a free, biweekly selection of film, book, and music recommendations from the Caucasus. Our team offers a varied selection of hidden gems, cherished classics, and notable new releases from all over the region, included in our newsletter.
New York Post
24-06-2025
- General
- New York Post
June 2025 new moon in Cancer is the most important one of the year — here's why
The moon-iest new moon of the year is upon us, folks — and this lunation is getting a heavy, heady dose of amplification from gas giant Jupiter. The new moon always aligns with the zodiac sign the sun is moving through. In this case, that would be Cancer, with its waxing and waning, intuition and tumult, pinchers and poignancy. The new moon arrives on June 25th, 2025, at 6:31 am ET at 4° of Cancer. Cancer is ruled by the moon, which makes this the mooniest new moon of the year. Here, the moon comes home and speaks of home in ways we cannot ignore. What makes this new moon particularly important is that it aligns with Jupiter — our planet of boons and blessings, who has recently set up shop in the sign of Cancer. New Moon in Cancer 2025 4 Because Cancer is ruled by the moon, this lunation is a kind of homecoming. Wolfborn Indiearts – Jupiter expands all that it touches, and in the cardinal waters of Cancer, that expansion can equate to healing and hurting, dream making and past aching. The new moon marks the first day of a lunar cycle. During the new moon, the moon is positioned between the Earth and the sun. The new moon is the darkest of the moon's eight-phase cycle, and in that dimness lies the point of pure potential, an empty field, an open road and a house taken down to the studs, where the vastness of all possibilities hums. As Cancer is related to the mother archetype, this new moon, if we allow it, can be a time of radical rebirth. This dark sky is, metaphorically speaking, a womb — and this go round we get to choose how we want to be fed and by whom. What is a new moon? 4 The new moon marks the first day of a lunar cycle. Eka – Questions to consider: What do we need to grow, and what does it take for us to feel safe? Relative to that sacred swig of mother's milk, the energy right now is fertile AF, making it a high time to get knocked up, sow the seeds of a new dream, cut loose from the umbilical noose and/or set your third eye toward a purposeful shift in mindset. Under these skies, we are licked clean as newborn wolf pups and get the chance to begin again, fortified by the memory of all that's been, humble and hopeful, interdependent and tender as the night. We can make the most of the new moon by being firm and clear as a lucite about what we want — and the measures we are willing to take. The best time to attune to our own crystal visions? Two days before and after the new moon. Moon water 4 As Cancer is a moon-ruled water sign, now is a fine time to brew up some new moon water. Cavan – As Cancer is a moon-ruled water sign, now is a fine time to brew up some new moon water. Find a glass container with a lid and fill it with purified water. Commit your intentions to paper, write down what you're looking to call into your life over the next two weeks and what dreams and schemes you would like to make manifest over the course of the next six months. Write in the present tense as if they have already come to pass, and fold the paper three times toward yourself. Place the sealed glass vessel outside where it is positioned to receive maximum sunlight and place your intentions underneath it. If you're inclined, surround the container with crystals and/or personal items. Leave the vessel outside during the new moon, where it will charge itself with shadow power. This water can be consumed, used to water plants or used for ritual bathing, cleansing or tea making. It will be infused with the amplified emotional energy of the Cancer new moon. Other new moon activities to consider: skinny-dipping, shouting into the abyss, a milk cleanse, EFT tapping, and/or sitting in the dark in a tepid bathtub and trying to remember how you felt in utero. Stay until your fingers are pruned and you forgive your mother/feel like your own mother. New moon in Cancer meaning 4 This new moon will be conjunct Jupiter, named for the king of the gods, it is our planet of abundance and amplification. mongkonchai – Cancer reigns over the fourth house of roots and ancestry. Aptly, the lessons of this lunation are relative to where we come from and what we return to; how we define nourishment, gratitude, and connectedness and how we conceive of home as both a container and a concept. As the moon comes home in the sign of Cancer, so too can we come home to our bodies and back to ourselves. Cancer equals tending and delivering, roots and binding, blood and breath, milk and bone. 'Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.' Cormac McCarthy Apropos of its relationship to the divine mother, Cancer understands that survival depends on the strength of our relationships, our willingness to need and be needed, and our ability to honor our urge to belong. Without connection, there is no memory. It's no accident that a group of crabs whose biological imperative is to protect and provide for the collective whole is called a 'cast.' In-kind and in claw, the archetype of Cancer reminds us that we are meant to heal ourselves in and through our communities, to cast our pain to the collective so it can be witnessed, reflected and gathered into a wider net of meaning. In his devastating novel 'All The Pretty Horses' Double Cancer Cormac McCarthy (sun and moon) writes, 'In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments. Those whom life does not cure, death will. The world is quite ruthless in selecting between the dream and reality, even when we are not. Between the wish and the thing, the world lies waiting.' Here's to the sacred cycle of wanting, wishing and waiting. Astrologer Reda Wigle researches and irreverently reports on planetary configurations and their effect on each zodiac sign. Her horoscopes integrate history, poetry, pop culture, and personal experience. To book a reading, visit her website.
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Business Standard
25-04-2025
- Automotive
- Business Standard
Eka Mobility aims to manufacture 10,000 e-buses annually by FY27
Eka Mobility, a startup turned original equipment manufacturer (OEM) that makes electric vehicles (EVs), is targeting to ramp up production of e-buses to 10,000 by 2026-27, founder and chairman Sudhir Mehta told Business Standard. According to Mehta, Eka plans to bring in a new product every six months across its commercial vehicle (CV) segments. This is being envisioned as the company is focusing on supply chain management and readying one million square feet of manufacturing space across its three plants. It is expanding its research and development (R&D) and technology centre at the Chakan plant in Pune. 'To contribute to the government's EV push, considering the extremely low penetration of e-buses in the country, we are ramping up our e-bus production capacity to 10,000 in our Koregaon and Pithampur plants by FY27,' Mehta said in an interview. The current capacity at the Koregaon-Bhima unit in Pune is about 2,500 a year, which is expected to increase to 5,000 by FY27. Once operational by FY27, the Pithampur, Madhya Pradesh facility is set to manufacture another 5,000 units annually. Meanwhile, Eka has bagged an order for 2,125 e-buses from the Centre under its PM e-Bus Sewa scheme. The order list includes 750 e-buses for Andhra Pradesh, 675 for Rajasthan and 205 for Chhattisgarh. This is in addition to its previous order of 1,500 e-buses from Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) and Nagpur Municipal Corporation. Launched in August 2023, PM e-Bus Sewa Scheme is aimed at augmenting the bus operations by deploying 10,000 e-buses on the public-private partnership (PPP) model across the country. The e-bus and small electric CV manufacturer now aims to hold the largest electric commercial vehicle portfolio in the country. It plans to create an initial annual capacity of 24,000 vehicles across all truck segments (small CVs to e-trucks). Elaborating on the plan, Mehta said, 'Heavier trucks are under trial and testing at the moment. Commercial launch of these will be before September. The trial and validation process takes almost six months to one year.' 'We will have trucks small to large, from three-wheelers to heavy trucks. For the next 12-18 months, we plan to have the largest fully available electric commercial vehicle portfolio in the country. A new product will be coming every 4-6 months,' he said. On a similar line, Eka also plans to roll out its new 18-metre articulated coach with 125-seater e-buses in the next 12 months. At present, it has a variety of e-buses in the 7-metre, 9-metre and intercity coach segments. The company's head confirmed that Eka is eyeing the e-ambulance market. It plans to roll out e-ambulances as part of its product range over the next year or so. According to Mehta, Eka took the longer route for developing technologies in India with its partners. He said, 'We are creating a supply chain with 100 per cent localisation which took us 4-5 years. Now, you will see us coming with a new product almost every 4-6 months over the next 1-2 years. And, all our products will be available for commercial sale.' When asked about Eka's estimated revenue by FY30, Mehta added, 'We began production 3-4 four months ago. We can estimate once we start selling. If each bus is about ₹1 crore and we do 2,000 buses in 12 months, that's ₹2,000 crore. Trucks will add additional revenue.'
