THE KARTLI KINGDOM

The suicide of a resident has sent shockwaves through the Kartli, a former sanatorium which has served as a makeshift home for displaced persons from Abkhazia since 1993. What began as a temporary arrangement has become an oddly precarious sort of permanent state. A crack in the building mirrors the uncertain future, the residents protest for better living conditions. Shot in the 4:3 format and featuring a poetic montage of archival footage, VHS recordings and Direct Cinema-style scenes, the film exposes structural failures and distils individual stories into a gripping portrait of resilience, resistance and the question of what home means when it is both a sanctuary and a ruin.