Directed by Kamila Kuc • 2021 • Poland/Abkhazia

Kamila Kuc’s radically empathetic exploration of the de facto Black Sea state of Abkhazia raises profound questions about displacement, memory, and trauma. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a brutal war between separatist Abkhazia and the Georgian state devastated what had once been a multicultural resort region. In Kuc’s reimagination of the past and present, seven non-professional locals reenact stories from their own lives, which Kuc interweaves with auto-fictional narration, archival materials processed with AI technology, and an ethereal soundscape designed by Timothy Nelson. The result reveals the Abkhaz War to be not history, but an elusive mix of reality and dream that continues to disturb the post-Soviet zone today.

WHAT WE SHARED
Written, directed and cinematography by Kamila Kuc
Music by Timothy Nelson
Featuring: Sergey Arutiunov, Tamriko Basaria, Manana Bigvava

In Russian, Abkhaz, and English with English subtitles