20/05/2003 - Nostalgia for the "good old days" and dreams of life in the West in the former Soviet bloc in Julie Bertucelli's inward-looking 1st film

Depuis qu'Otar est parti, is a Belgian-French co-production and the first film by a promising new director called Julie Bertucelli screened on 19 May.
Bertucelli, who trained with past masters of cinema like Krysztof Kieslowski and Otar Iosseliani – she was their assistant director - chose three generations of Georgian women with a passion for all things French. A grandmother, mother and grand-daughter struggling to survive in impoverished Georgia, dreaming all the while about joining Otar, the son, who lives and works in Paris. Unfortunately he has an accident and is killed and this tragedy precipitates the three women into a new world built on lies and deception that only ends when they finally begin their journey to the legendary Ville Lumière. The film is a well-constructed and well-acted drama that succeeds in putting across the strong sentiments and love that binds this family unit together and has allowed them, and so many others like them, to survive the hard times that followed the end of the Soviet Union, mixed with nostalgia for the good old days and dreams of life in the West.
This Franco-Belgian co-production by France’s Les Films du Poisson and Belgium’s Entre Chien et Loup, Depuis qu’Otar est parti is a result of the strength of the joint venture between these two countries in the auteur-driven sector. This year also saw an excellent crop of European co-productions in Cannes with Des Plumes dans la tête by Thomas de Thier in Directors’ Fortnight, and Stormy Weather [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Solveig Anspach and Mille Mois by Faouzi Bensaïdi.

(Translated from French)