Slamdance ‘24: On the Way Home

As late as 2023, the United Nations formally recognized the rights of ethnic Georgians to return to their homes in Abkhazia. Yet, nobody is out in the streets protesting on their behalf, because they were expelled by Russian-backed separatists. For years, they lived in large abandoned Soviet-era spa resorts, as viewers can see in Georgi Kvelidze’s shrewdly observant documentary, On the Way Home, which screens at the 2024 Slamdance Film Festival.

It is a strange place to grow up, especially for “Haiko,” a young boy living with his grandmother. His father died in the war, while his rarely-seen mother works in the big city to support her family. To her credit, she tries to call regularly, but for Haiko and his grandmother are mostly on their own, like most Abkhazian refugees.

The once-grand buildings of Tskaltubo have fallen into disrepair, but as we can see from archival footage, they were once grandly luxurious. Kvelidze cleverly emphasizes the point with superimposed “then-and-now” split-screens. These sequences also help differentiate the film from other socially conscious fly-on-the-wall documentaries.

The refugees have lived in Tskaltubo for years (officially, they are not squatters), but the beleaguered Georgian state is preparing to move them to permanent new homes. Of course, that sort of implies giving up any hope of returning to their Abkhazia homes.

So, we are all going to go out and protest on behalf of displaced Georgians, right? I mean, fair is fair. Unfortunately, these poor Georgians have not been well-served by film festivals in the past. In 2014, the NYFF programmed Eric Baudelaire’s docu-essay Letters to Max, in which the filmmaker allowed his friend, Maxim Gvinjia, the former foreign minister of the breakaway Abkhazia, to celebrate his phony nation’s independence and to dismiss the ethnic cleansing that displaced the people seen in Kvelidze’s film. Programming Letters to Max was ethically dubious. It is easy to see why, if you watch On the Way Home.

If you haven’t seen Baudelaire’s film (and I really hope you haven’t), On the Way Home still holds a great deal of meaning. It is well-made and since it runs just over an hour, it does not overstay its welcome. Slamdance deserves credit for having the flexibility to select films that have a between-and-twixt lengths, like this one. Highly recommended for anyone interested in displaced people—I mean genuinely interested and not parroting tiktok garbage—On the Way Home screens again this Tuesday (1/23) during this year’s Slamdance.