“We, the Kartli refugees,” is how the people who have lived in a Tbilisi sanatorium of that very name for 30 years, since the 1990s civil wars in Georgia, describe themselves. This line is taken from a protest defending their rights to be heard and supported, unflinchingly captured by the documentary The Kartli Kingdom, which world-premiered in IDFA’s International Competition, where it won both the Award for Best Directing and a Best First Feature Special Mention (see the news). Co-directed by Georgian-French filmmaking duo Tamar Kalandadze and Julien Prebel, The Kartli Kingdom paints an intimate portrait of a terminally displaced community through observing and witnessing their daily lives. Kalandadze and Prebel served as both cinematographers and sound recordists to assure the set-up wasn’t invasive, but rather encouraging.

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As silent witnesses, the directors and the camera embrace the inhabitants’ oral histories: from being expelled from Abkhazia to taking what seemed like temporary refuge in a sanatorium for people with heart conditions. While the filmmakers are careful not to simplify their stories of exile by placing them on a timeline, The Kartli Kingdom – which is also what Georgia was called in Medieval times – strikes a very fine and commendable balance by serving as a non-linear historical document, without harvesting nostalgia for the past. Yet, a sense of heavy mourning weighs down on the film from its beginning, when we learn of the tragic suicide of 52-year-old Zurab, who “fell like a leaf, with everyone watching”. An act of sacrifice propels the community to fight for (and, in some ways, against) their dilapidated home, even when the camera shows a cavern splitting the building in half. Collapse is imminent, and it’s time to act; yet the officials – present over phone calls we never get to hear – remain passive.

Framed in 4:3 and shot in ways that honour the building's textures as if they were a metaphor for the psyche’s trauma-laden terrain, The Kartli Kingdom abounds in static shots of the chipped, naked-concrete walls and the uneven floors, along with their puddles and holes as the change of seasons wears them down. “Everything was neat and tidy,” recounts one resident, speaking of the state of the sanatorium 26 years ago, “and there was even a carpet.” This is the most nostalgia you’ll get out of the film, though, as the directors know better than to try to turn back time, even when interviewing the oldest Kartli dweller. Instead, they prefer to carve out a space where the past can reside and speak for itself – the archive.

What elevates The Kartli Kingdom above your regular, well-crafted observational documentary is the inventive approach it takes to layering (be it stories, memories or archives), which nevertheless shows a deep understanding of the architectonics of trauma. In the film, the residents’ personal VHS recordings of weddings are shown in communal spaces, and some of the directors’ own footage is made to match the archival aesthetic, without ever implying they sit on the same plane. In their feature debut, Kalandadze and Prebel already exhibit a method that’s patient and attentive to, first and foremost, the Kartli people, but also to their dwelling place – a site of ambivalence that has now become a home.

The Kartli Kingdom was produced by Sakdoc Film (Georgia) and Habilis Productions (France), with Square Eyes handling its international sales.