A cluster of crumbling hotels and sanatoriums in the former Soviet spa town of Tskaltubo has been home to thousands of internally displaced Georgian refugees since they were forced to flee their homes in Abkhazia thirty years ago. The buildings, part of a famously luxurious resort that catered to Communist party dignitaries, are now in a state of decay yet remain full of life as the dozens of families who still occupy them wait for assigned government housing. Director Giorgi Kvelidze provides a hauntingly beautiful cinematic observation of the power of patience and resilience as he follows teenage Nikusha, who lives with his doting grandmother, and octogenarian Iamze as she delights in a visit from a grandson whom she hasn’t seen in 27 years. Stirring archival footage is juxtaposed with scenes of Nikusha skateboarding down dark, ornately corniced corridors and young children playing in grand, spiraling stairwells, as the grandmothers quietly share pre-war memories that achingly blend notions of family with the permanence of home. WFM

Filmmaker Q&A following screening