Something About Georgia

It looks like your average summer evening in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. The camera glides over the roofs, lights and low-lying clouds around the hills, and a flock of birds flies by. It is August 8, 2008. The camera swerves into a living room, where President Michail Saakashvili is on TV announcing that Georgia has opened fire after an attack by South Ossetian separatists and Russian bombers. The next day, we see the bombers and the horrible consequences of the attack: panic, fire, blood, casualties and mourners. A little later, we're in the president's car as he travels to the battleground. Georgian filmmaker Nino Kirtadze intersperses daily life on the streets with political drama to provide an interpretation of the state of Georgia in 2008. Remarks made by housewives as they hang the laundry have just as much weight as a speech from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, sent by the European Union to mediate the conflict. But Kirtadze makes his story much broader than just those days of war in August, with President Saakashvili as the protagonist. We follow him as he prepares for the election earlier that year. Kirtadze reveals an international power struggle and a deeply rooted history, one that goes far beyond the borders of Georgia. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)