The Other Bank (Georgia)

12 year old Georgian refugee searches for his father. With an occasional life affirming moment thrown in this well directed film was overall still pretty depressing. It's an interesting film with what I believe is a fair amount of symbolism that was too subtle for me unfortunately. Nothing is wrong with either of these things - just wasn't quite what I was looking for on a Saturday afternoon.

I'm feeling particularly lazy - so here's the more involved description from SIFF that lured me in...

Winner Grand Jury Prize - SIFF 2009 New Directors Showcase Competition
Jury Statement: We give our prize to The Other Bank. It is a picaresque narrative with a powerful mise-en-scène and an exceptional skill in addressing a complex post-war situation through a remarkable character incarnated by a 12-year-old nonprofessional.

Torn from his father at the beginning of the Georgian-Abkhazia war, slightly cross-eyed 12-year-old Tedo is tired of living the life of a refugee. He works hard at an auto repair shop, and his young mother, Keto, works as a clerk, but it’s not enough to help them get by, so Keto starts to prostitute herself to help them survive. It’s all too much for Tedo to handle, and he decides to search for his father in war-torn Abkhazia. Warned not to go into this tinderbox, he decides to go anyway. Unable to speak the local language and afraid for his safety, Tedo pretends to be deaf as his odyssey takes him across physical and emotional landscapes and borders where nationalism rules and where the “eye for an eye” mentality dominates. The war-ravaged world he encounters reflects the complex state of affairs wrestling within the boy’s psyche. Director Ovashvili brings together a diverse production team from Russia, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Czech Republic, Israel, and South Korea to create a gripping, unsentimental story of a boy with grownup cares who finds his own path to living bravely.