SINCE OTAR LEFT...
aka DEPUIS QU'OTAR EST PARTI...

Year: 2003
USA: Zeitgeist Films
UK: Optimum Releasing
Cast: Esther Gorintin, Nino Khomasuridze, Dinara Droukarova, Temur Kalandadze, Roussoudan Bolkvadze, Sasha Sarishvili, Douta Skhirtladze, Mzia Eristavi, Zoura Natroshvili, Nodar Mdzinarishvili, Jacques Fleury, Manon Abashidze, Irina Tukhulova, Iago Demetrashvili, Vaja Djalagania, Sarah Chaumette, Misha Eristavi, Alexandre Makharoblishvili, Misha Mujiri, Frederic Payen, Manana Taralashvili, Medea Roinshvili, Gocha Darbaidze, Malanime Sissokho
Director: Julie Bertucelli
Country: France
Languages: French / Georgian / Russian (English subtitles)
USA & UK: 102 mins
UK Certificate: 15 contains infrequent strong language
USA Release Date: 9 April 2004 (Limited Release)
UK Release Date: 4 June 2004

US Distributor

Synopsis

Winner of the prestigious Critics' Week Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and featuring a trio of stunning performances, Julie Bertuccelli's exquisite SINCE OTAR LEFT... is a bittersweet tale of deception and affection.

Three Georgian women--strong-willed matriarch Eka (90 year-old former dental assistant and fledgling star Esther Gorintin), her long-suffering daughter Marina (Nino Khomassouridze) and rebellious granddaughter Ada (Dinara Droukarova) - all live together in their stately-yet-crumbling apartment in contemporary Tbilisi, the capital of the former Soviet republic. Eka pines for her beloved son Otar, a physician who is now a construction worker in Paris. Marina is deeply resentful of her mother's obsession with her absent brother, while Ada endures their bickering and yearns for a more adventurous existence. When a friend of Otar's calls with tragic news, Marina and Ada must make a seemingly impossible choice: Do they keep Eka from learning the truth?

Former assistant director to Bertrand Tavernier and Krzysztof Kieslowski, Bertuccelli deftly spins the delicate threads of familial conflict and maternal love into a bewitching tangle of intergenerational duplicity.