Film Archive

Jahr

Panorama: Central and Eastern Europe 2023
Filmstill Self-Portrait Along the Borderline
Self-Portrait Along the Borderline
Anna Dziapshipa
Abkhazia, a place of memory and at the same time a blind spot for the director. Almost impossible to enter from Georgia, she chooses an associative and personal approach to the split-off territory.
Filmstill Self-Portrait Along the Borderline

Self-Portrait Along the Borderline

Avtoportreti zghvarze
Anna Dziapshipa
Panorama: Central and Eastern Europe 2023
Documentary Film
Georgia
2023
50 minutes
Georgian,
Russian
Subtitles: 
English

Parts of the house director Anna Dziapshipa traces in her autobiographical roamings through the past look like straight out of a horror film: cobwebbed, dark, derelict. It is located in Abkhazia, the region officially off-limits to Georgians, protected by Russia and not recognised as an autonomous republic by the international community.

One half of Dziapshipa’s family comes from here, including a football player who once was a key player for Dinamo Tbilisi. The filmmaker edits footage of his sports activities into “Self-Portrait Along the Borderline,” but also shows the splendour of the former Soviet holiday paradise. It is a personal, associative approach in which Dziapshipa analyses and reflects on her own experiences as a child with both Georgian and Abkhazian family backgrounds. Discrimination plays a role, as do solemn and disturbing things. Time and again, spiders crawl through the frame, weaving their webs and thus connections.

Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Anna Dziapshipa
Cinematographer
Anna Dziapshipa
Editor
Eka Tsotsoria
Producer
Anna Dziapshipa
Co-Producer
Niko Mikadze
Sound
Anna Dziapshipa
Sound Design
Paata Godziashvili
Score
Nika Paniashvili
Nominated for: MDR Film Prize