Cinema
ზღვარზე
Dito Tsintsadze · 1993
Synopsis
In a city that nothing names, war has split society into two camps. The hero has relatives and friends on both sides: he refuses to choose, withdraws into isolation, and would like to leave the country with the woman he loves. Divided in two as the city is, he stands on the borderline, and each of his actions there becomes hard to read.
Context
The film makes no direct reference to Georgia or to the conflicts of the region: its author composes in it a visual no man's land on the edge of dissolution, and tells with few words the story of a man who would like to be impartial and discovers that it is not possible. Giorgi Nakashidze is in the cast, the cinematography is by Mikheil Magalashvili, and the director wrote the screenplay and designed the sets. Eighty minutes. Several of those who shot it died shortly afterwards in the Abkhazian war, and others survived it because the shoot kept them back.
Who it is for
In Georgian, with no French release. You need to know that the film was shot during the civil war that it never names, and that it is as much a parable as a testimony.
Prizes and reception
Silver Leopard at the Locarno festival in 1993, and Golden Eagle at the International Festival of the Black Sea Nations.