Valodia Tsuladze

A poetized chronicle of the events taking place in one of the Georgian villages in the late 19th century, when, to save a forest, the innumerous intelligentsia could rally the people and oppose the industrialists…

Soviet Georgian film by Eldar Shengelaia. Based on short story by D. Kldiashvili

Dreaming of creating a Czech musical theater, not recognized in his homeland, Josef Navratil, under the pseudonym of Iosif Ratili, one day comes on tour to Georgia.

Juna Mukhraneli will be assigned to work at a quarry after graduating from the institute. However, upon arrival, she will be offered the position of temporary well foreman instead of a geologist.

Old people from a small village in Guria, renowned for their love and knowledge of folk songs, will be performing at a folk song festival in a Bulgarian seaside resort. Their Guria songs will delight the audience, making them many good friends and embarking on fun adventures.

Ivane, a Gurian peasant is struggling with social inequality, trying to feed an impoverished family, pay state and rent taxes with extreme physical exertion and timber production. There is little hope for the future.

The film tells the life of a Georgian woman from 1920s to the present day. Love, marriage, Russian annexation and collectivization, world war, loss of children - Sidonia went through many sorrows and troubles on her way of life, but she always maintained spiritual courage and hope for the future.

The film comprises three cinematic novellas: (1) “And They Arrived at the Peasant’s Hut… or the Adventures of Writer Senya in Search of the Hidden Word,” in which writer Senya draws inspiration for his rural novels from his housekeeper Yermolayevna’s tales; (2) “The Song, or How the Great Louarsab Organized a Choir,” where a city visitor attempts to form a choir of centenarian elders in a Georgian mountain village; (3) “What Is Our Life?! or What Is Our Life?!”—during a musical reenactment of pre-Revolutionary France, a drunken actor’s tardiness forces King Louis XIV (also the theater committee chairman) and the cast to improvise the play’s ending.