Cinema
ოცნებების სასაფლაო
Goga Khaindrava · 1997
Synopsis
A group of young men go off to fight in Abkhazia, in the early nineties, when Georgia is losing the war being waged there. The film follows them from one position to the next, in waiting as much as in combat, shows what their bodies endure and what their minds make of it, and names them one by one.
Context
The director himself operated a camera, alongside four other cameramen, and co-wrote the screenplay with Irakli Solomanachvili; the music is by Niaz Diassamidzé. The war footage was shot on the spot, during the fighting, and the greater part of the film was reconstructed afterwards, once the guns had fallen silent. Most of the characters are real people who took part in those battles, and the film is often the only document that survives about them.
Who it is for
In Georgian, with no French release. It is worth knowing that the war in Abkhazia, from 1992 to 1993, drove more than two hundred thousand Georgians from their homes, and that the country had not yet made a film about it.
Prizes and reception
Special prize of the main competition of the Kinotavr in Sochi in 1997, in a selection whose grand prize went to the first Russian film about the same generation.