Breath of the Mountain

Writer-director Gareth Stack explores the intersections of gender, geography, and ritual in Breath of the Mountain, an ethnographic short, filmed in the remote Racha-Lechkhumi region of rural Georgia. The film documents an arduous expedition to a sacred summit near the town of Oni, a place where ascent is permitted exclusively to boys and men.

Stack uses this steep ascent to map the contours of his own familial lineage, drawing parallels between inherited intergenerational trauma and the physical trials of the ascent. Set against a landscape layered with both Orthodox Christian and pre-Christian animist traditions, the film functions as a sensory interrogation of masculinity, endurance, and the shared, laboured breath of men.