--- title: "Dry Leaf: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/dry-leaf/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/dry-leaf" critics_score: 67 critics_reviews: 7 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Dry Leaf (2026): what the critics said Critics' score 67 from 7 reviews: 5 positive, 1 mixed, 1 negative. Most critics are taken with Dry Leaf, and the praise clusters around one choice: Koberidze shoots three hours of rural Georgia on an obsolete mobile phone, and the pixelated, compressed images are found hazy, hypnotic and romantic. Several reviews describe a childlike or impressionistic way of seeing ordinary encounters and empty spaces. Sight and Sound finds a quietly political portrait of post-Soviet Georgia and its eroding communal life. The score by the director’s brother and the film’s openness to absurdity earn a mention. The reservations cluster around the same choice, from the other side. Screen Daily admires the boldness but finds the pacing an endurance test and doubts the film travels far beyond festivals. IndieWire goes further, calling the low-resolution look wearying and finding less magic in the mundane than in the director’s earlier work. The spread is wide, from warm enthusiasm to fatigue, with the middle ground occupied by critics who call it demanding but rewarding for the patient. ## Variety — Jessica Kiang Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 17 August 2025. Festival review. The critic finds “Dry Leaf” a joy for devotees of the strange and singular, a defiantly peculiar three-hour meander through rural Georgia that uses pixelated, obsolete-phone imagery to create a romantic, mysterious world. They single out the film's paradoxical pleasures, from the sublime sparks in everyday encounters to its pioneering use of old tech for new cinema. [Read the review](https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/dry-leaf-review-1236487253/) ## Sight and Sound Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 16 June 2026. The critic describes the film as a subdued low-tech road movie that invites viewers to adopt a childlike, curious mode of perception through its granular mobile-phone imagery. It singles out the quietly political portrait of post-Soviet Georgia and the erosion of communal spaces for praise. [Read the review](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/dry-leaf-alexandre-koberidzes-low-res-road-movie-quietly-political-ode-ordinary) ## Slant Magazine Fi1m's normalised score 75/100 (inferred from the text). 13 August 2025. Festival review. Koberidze deploys a mischievous gambit with invisible characters and extreme phone-shot compression that renders images impressionistic and hypnotic at times. The critic praises the way the film tasks viewers with imagining and recreating the world amid its slow, contemplative journey. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/dry-leaf-review-alexandre-koberidze/) ## Film Comment — Fatoumata Bah Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 13 May 2026. The critic praises how the film starts as a missing-person story but shifts to patient observation of encounters, spaces, and absences in the Georgian countryside. The low-res cellphone cinematography is singled out for creating an impressionistic, enchanting haze that reorients perception of everyday reality. [Read the review](https://www.filmcomment.com/searching-for-space-dry-leaf-review/) ## Screen Daily Fi1m's normalised score 50/100 (inferred from the text). 22 October 2025. Festival review. The critic calls it a meditative and elusive picture whose deliberately pixelated low-res aesthetic challenges conventional notions of beauty and cinematic polish. It singles out the bold technical choice and spiritual quality for praise while noting the endurance-testing pacing and limited appeal beyond festivals. [Read the review](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/dry-leaf-review-a-meditative-georgia-set-road-movie-shot-on-a-low-res-phone-camera/5210157.article) ## IndieWire — Josh Slater-Williams Fi1m's normalised score 40/100 (inferred from the text). 15 August 2025. Festival review. The film is low-resolution and ultimately hard going, finding less magic in the mundane than the director's previous work. The critic singles out the pixelated phone-shot aesthetic as a central but ultimately wearying element. [Read the review](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/dry-leaf-review-1235145620/) ## Eye for Film — Lucija Furac Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 12 October 2025. Festival review. The critic describes the film as a challenging slow-cinema experience due to its three-hour length and low-resolution phone footage but finds it rewarding for its dreamy, poetic visuals of rural Georgia. They single out the hazy Sony Ericsson-shot images, the brother's score, and the film's openness to wonder and absurdity for praise, while noting the meandering narrative and limited information disclosure may frustrate less patient viewers. [Read the review](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/dry-leaf-2025-film-review-by-lucija-furac) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/dry-leaf.md