TBILISI-TBILISI
DIRECTOR: LEVAN ZAKAREJSVILI
GEORGIA 2005
87 MIN / 35MM, COLOR + B&W, OV w. engl. ST
Caligari: 07.04. / 8.00 pm
Alpha: 08.04. / 6.00 pm
DIRECTOR:
Levan Zakarejsvili
SCREENPLAY:
Levan Zakarejsvili
CAMERA:
Archil Ahvlediani
Georgij Masharasvili
Georgij Beridze
Badri Vasadze
Zaza Zomaja
Suliko Melasvili
Gela Chinchaladze
ART DIRECTOR:
Gogi Tatisvili
Kote Dzaparidze
EDITOR:
Merab Ahvlediani
Tengiz Zakarejsvili
MUSIC:
Niazi Diasamidze
PRODUCER:
Levan Zakarejsvili
CAST:
Georgij Masharasvili
Eka Nizaradze
Georgij Mgeladze
Georgij Nakasidze
Berta Hapava
PRODUCTION:
L. Zakara Studio, Tbilisi
PROVIDED BY:
L. Zakara Studio, Tbilisi
Tel.: 00995 - 32 / 22 09 30
e-mail: lzakara@yahoo.com
The title is something like a cry of woe. Director Levan Zakarejsvili
depicts life in Tbilisi as dominated by poverty, chaos, and violence.
The plot unfolds on two narrative planes by means of the film-within-a-film
device. David, a no longer youthful filmmaker, is looking for somebody
to repair his camera – and is hoping to find more besides: a story.
His girlfriend Salome teaches at the conservatory and earns extra cash
in the evenings by playing piano in a restaurant. In the capital of the
Georgian Republic, people get by as best they can, relying on help and
mutual favours from friends and acquaintances. Almost incidentally, a
picture unfolds of everyday life in the city. Tbilisi is a place where
people have stones where their hearts should be, says David’s friend
Nogar as they drink vodka together in a cafe. Going to the market one
day, the filmmaker comes across his former professor, now trading from
a tiny stall. He’s found a new use for his scholarly works –
he passes them on as wrapping paper to the woman who sells nuts next to
him. Elsewhere in the film we hear that Georgia is a country where professors
become dealers and shopkeepers ministers. Now filmmaker David has his
plot: His black-and-white film shows a disintegrating society whose citizens
are reduced to a ruthless struggle for survival. The brutal reality is
hammered into him after he indignantly turns down a proposal made to him
by dubious Russian agents, and so there is more shade than light in this
moving record of a disillusioned generation.
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