Directed by Luka Beradze • 2023 • Georgia

During the 2012 presidential elections in Georgia, the incumbent Mikheil Saakashvili made a strange offer to citizens in the country’s neglected rural outposts: in exchange for their votes, his party would provide them with new teeth. Residents began to have their rotten teeth removed in anticipation – only for Saakashvili to lose the election, leaving some of the most deprived communities in Georgia in an enduring state of dental emergency. Luka Beradze’s incisive, humanely humorous documentary transports us to a village hit hard by this electioneering, still toothless eight years on. With a reflective, observational style, he observes life on the margins of political discourse, drawing out the perils of populism and the dignity of its victims.

SMILING GEORGIA • ღიმილიანი საქართველო
Written and directed by Luka Beradze
Cinematography by Lomero Akhvlediani
Music by Alex Kordzaia

In Georgian with English subtitles