The Other Bank

Torn away from his father at the beginning of the Georgian-Abkhazian war, slightly cross-eyed 12-year-old Tedo is tired of living the life of a refugee. He works very hard at a garage while his young mother, Keto, is employed as a clerk, but their incomes do not suffice to get by, so Keto begins to prostitute herself in order to help them to survive. This is too much for Tedo to bear, so disregarding all warnings he decides to look for his father in war-torn Abkhazia. Unable to speak the local language and worried about his own safety, Tedo pretends to be deaf. His odyssey takes him across borders into physical and emotional landscapes where nationalism rules and the “eye for an eye” mentality dominates. The war-ravaged world he encounters reflects the complex state of affairs struggling inside the boy’s psyche.