14-year-old best friends Eka and Natia are, like most girls their age, concerned with teenage drama in Tbilisi in the summer of 1992. (Two impressive screen debuts: Lika Babluani and Mariam Bokeria) The conditions, however, to live a “normal” teenage life in the Republic of Georgia in the early 1990s are unfavourable: Eka’s father is in jail, her mother distracted, and Natia lives with her extended family headed by her violent and alcoholic father. A society in upheaval, the first post-Soviet president toppled by a military coup, there is a shortage of everything, the war in Abhkazia is noticeable in the capital city. One constant though is power of patriarchy that somehow appears timeless. The gun that Natia receives as a romantic gesture from her admirer, which is passed around between the girls, is a sign of a violence-ridden and fractured society.
The girls’ friendship is tested when Natia is “kidnapped” and forced to marry a man she doesn’t love –a still common courtship practice in the 1990s. Eka is horrified and attempts in vain to stop the marriage. In the film’s most powerful scene, Eka gains a place in the gathered company by performing a traditional dance at the wedding. Her dance is an act of compromise but also a demonstration that submission doesn’t equal forfeiting a woman’s pride or strength.

Sebastian Markt