Water Has No Borders

Water is unconcerned by political borders. This also applies to the Enguri River, which is hemmed in by a vast dam. Since Abkhazia split off from Georgia at the start of the 1990s following the civil war, it lies exactly on the border. This has any number of absurd effects on the upkeep of the dam, which the director explores with the help of an engineer called Ika.  “But while the workers take the bus across the border every morning, the film crew is thwarted by bureaucracy. Time and again they are denied passage. This turns out to be fortunate for the film, because waiting for the permission, in the cafeteria of the dam, in drives around the river, the stories of people emerge whose lives are shaped by the secession. They talk of legal and clandestine border crossings, weddings and funerals and of life in the here and there.” (Marie Kloos)