★★★★☆
Uta Beria’s second feature was filmed among thousands of real protesters, allowing fictional characters to move through an unfolding political reality.
Premiering at this year’s Locarno International Film Festival, where it received the Cinema&Gioventù Special Prize (Youth Jury Award) in the Cineasti del Presente section, Uta Beria’s second feature film, Tear Gas, had already generated considerable attention long before reaching audiences in the Caucasus. From the discussions surrounding its production and the director’s public statements to its international recognition, the film became one of the most talked-about Georgian releases of the year.
Tear Gas opens with a group of people dressed in black, walking slowly through a forest of tall coniferous trees. Beautiful, soft light filters through the branches and between the trunks, illuminating their quiet procession. The atmosphere feels almost sacred as they carry a coffin towards the barbed-wire fence marking the end of Georgian-controlled territory. The contrast between the tranquillity of the forest and the painful reality of the situation creates a mesmerising opening sequence, particularly powerful on the big screen.
For audiences from a region where losing one’s land often means losing one’s roots, the scene feels painfully familiar. By attempting to return the body of a deceased person to the place they once called home, the mourners seem to be reversing the usual course of displacement. Instead of leaving their dead behind, they move towards the land they have lost. But the peaceful procession is interrupted by gunfire, forcing them to flee.
It is at this point we are introduced to 16-year-old Elene (Taisia Eradze), her father Avto (Gaga Shishinashvili) and grandmother Dali (Mzia Arabuli, recently familiar from Levan Akin’s Crossing, though here, Arabuli speaks considerably less, often leaving things unsaid).
The film spends its initial focus on Elene, showing her being put into a chokehold during judo practice, yet making no attempt to resist, allowing herself to lose consciousness. The scene suggests a form of self-harm, although it also invites other interpretations. Perhaps the suffocating hold reflects the reality in which she lives or perhaps losing consciousness offers a temporary escape from it.
The focus then shifts to Tbilisi, where Elene joins mass anti-government demonstrations alongside her grandmother and several older women from their community. We discover that her father serves in the police forces responsible for dispersing protesters, while her largely absent mother, Tina (Kato Kalatozishvili), is a journalist covering the demonstrations.
When clashes erupt and Elene disappears into the crowd, her estranged parents come together to search for her. Their encounter feels more symbolic than entirely convincing, reflecting a deeply divided country where even members of the same family stand on opposite sides of the barricades. Their confrontation also seems designed to explain tensions that the film has already communicated without words. Meanwhile, the grandmother continues her silent search, although her place in the family drama remains somewhat unclear. Elene, however, is not so much choosing between her parents as physically absorbing the tensions surrounding her.
While everyone searches for her, she finds herself with a young man in an abandoned cinema. What begins as physical intimacy turns unsettling when she starts choking him. Is this suffocating love, an expression of desire, a form of sadomasochism, or a desperate coping mechanism? The scene recalls the earlier judo sequence, but with the roles reversed: Elene, who previously submitted to being choked, now becomes the one inflicting it. Violence seems to have found its way into the most intimate aspects of her life.
Throughout, women of different generations carry much of the film’s emotional and historical weight. The grandmother, the mother, and Elene each experience the country’s fractured reality differently, through memory, political resistance, and the uncertainty of growing up in a society marked by conflict.
Yet it is in its combination of fiction and documentary that Tear Gas becomes truly remarkable. Beria places his actors among thousands of real protesters, allowing fictional characters to move through an unfolding political reality. Some faces in the crowds are blurred, reminding us that these are real people, not extras. The characters seem to be searching not only for one another but also for a way out of the situation in which their country finds itself.
The achievement of the cast and crew deserves enormous respect. Working in the middle of actual demonstrations, where nobody could predict what might happen in the next five minutes, is extraordinary in itself. Each return to the crowds reminds us of the risks involved and the unusual circumstances in which this film was made.
Considering how many protests and political upheavals have taken place across the post-Soviet space, particularly in the Caucasus, Tear Gas feels like a significant achievement for regional cinema. Despite the shortcomings of its family drama, the film raises important questions about individual responsibility, collective resistance, and what happens when ordinary people step into the streets to become part of something larger than themselves.
Ultimately, Tear Gas leaves us with more questions than answers. But perhaps that is inevitable in a country still struggling with its present and uncertain future. Through Elene’s coming-of-age story, Beria captures not only the vulnerability of adolescence but also the trauma of a society searching for its way forward.
Film details: Tear Gas (2026), directed by Uta Beria, had its Georgian premiere at the 6th Kutaisi International Film Festival on 19 October 2026.