After winning the Best Documentary Award at Cinedoc-Tbilisi, Georgian director Nikoloz Bezhanishvili’s feature The Northeast Winds has just scooped the top award in the Central and Eastern European Competition of the 30th Astra Film Festival (see the news). Following a group of die-hard Stalinists, members of the Stalin Society Party in the Georgian city of Gori, the documentary explores various layers of nostalgia, showing how a person can get stuck in the past.

Starting with archival footage from 2010, when Joseph Stalin’s bronze, larger-than-life statue was removed from its imposing plinth in the central square in Stalin’s hometown of Gori, the documentary soon populates the screen with a plethora of characters, playfully commenting on nostalgia, poverty, propaganda, dubious beliefs and, most importantly, the act of being very selective with history and the truth.

It is not at all surprising that most of the protagonists are quite old and, as happens in many countries in the region, sadly ignored by society. Without choosing a clear position, either with or against what spurs on his protagonists, Bezhanishvili’s camera kindly looks into these people’s lives, exploring what makes them tick. Let’s take, for example, Makvala Shatakishvili, an elderly Stalinist who, at the very beginning of the film, meditates on the stark contrast between her past – when she felt important and dedicated her time to the betterment of society – and her much less glorious present, riddled with hardship.

“Who we were and who we are today,” Makvala muses, full of sadness. Perhaps her political sympathies are misplaced, but one cannot help but feel empathy for this woman shaped by her past and obviously rejected by the present. Regardless of the film’s political aspect, Makvala’s tragedy can easily be translated into something more universal and more familiar – for example, an ageing person lamenting the loss of their youth, health or beauty.

It is indeed hard not to feel disconnected from the protagonists. They are actively praising Stalin, who is described in the film as “the man who won World War II” and “a genius admired by his enemies, Roosevelt and Churchill”. We are indeed talking about a man whose views on the value of human life spawned one of the most famous quotes in history, “The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of millions is a statistic.” According to some sources, Stalin never said that – the author is German journalist Kurt Tucholsky – but his actions overwhelmingly supported such a frightening, psychopathic view of the world, with millions facing an untimely death because of him and his nomenklatura. Those who followed him as rulers of the Soviet Union hastened to denounce his reign and ask for the famous de-Stalinisation, but it seems as though this news never arrived in Gori…

Bezhanishvili’s documentary is much funnier than this review might imply, as it explores human nature (errare humanum est, remember?), with its petty conflicts, envy and a few other “capital sins”, deftly painting a world we might not agree with, but one that exists and that we should enjoy because it might disappear in a few years.

The Northeast Winds was produced by Georgian outfit Nikadocfilm.