Lift Lady

When Mzia was younger, and Georgia had just gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union, she fought as a sniper against Russian aggression in Abkhasia. Now in the autumn of her life, she manages an elevator in a Brutalist-style apartment block in Tbilisi. The elevator is there to serve the residents, but others can use it to access a labyrinthine construction and skybridge leading to a higher part of the neighborhood.

Mzia lives with her cat in a cubicle next to the elevator shaft, where she keeps an eye on the elevator on a grainy video screen. But when “her” elevator gets stuck, it marks the start of a tragicomic quest to resolve the issue. Mzia can’t reach the technician and the local authorities aren’t responding to calls and letters, so the conscientious elevator operator has no choice but to disappoint her frustrated customers.

At home, meanwhile, she sighs as she looks at her old army photos and her beloved portrait of Stalin. The day-to-day concerns of the elderly in this typical neighborhood full of bureaucratic echoes and techniques of the past are at odds with a modernizing country in flux.