Section: EcoEast

KOLCHIDA

Kolkhida

Soso Chkhaidze

SU (GE), 1967, 20 Min

For a long time, the swamplands on the Georgian Black Sea coast were considered to be a "land of death". In this documentary film Soso Chkhaidze takes an ethnographic look at the history of the Colchis Lowland, or Kolkhida, and creates, in the process, his own poetics of cultivating this so-called "wet planet".

Today the Kolkhida, the ancient swamplands of Georgia, are kept at bay via a combination of citrus crops and costly modernization projects. With his attentive eye for detail, the director paints a poetic portrait of a conquered yet stubborn landscape, observing all the while the direct interaction between a people and nature.

Text: Irine Beridze
English: Peter Rickerby

Glad-House: original version with English subtitles + German simultaneous translation

Drehbuch
Soso Chkhaidze

Kamera
Roman Tsurtsuria

Ton
M. Gventseladze

Schnitt
M. Potskhveriya

Produktion
VGIK

Soso Chkhaidze - Soso Chkhaidze (b. March 18 , 1937 , Tbilisi - d. August 3 , 1992 , Tbilisi) — Georgian film director, screenwriter, teacher. In 1967, while still a third-year student at the Institute of Cinematography, he shot the scientific-popular film "Kolkhida" at the Georgian Documentary Film Studio - about the problem of the utilization of marshy lands, which repeatedly and painfully manifested itself in subsequent years. It was awarded the main prize as the best scientific popular film at the zonal festival held in Yerevan.

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