Reihe 6

According to international law, the South Ossetia Region on the southern slopes of the great Caucasus Mountains belongs to Georgia, but a hostile intervention by Russia in 2008 placed it in a permanently provisional state as an enclave with an unclear status, with which Vladimir Putin is attempting to expand the borders of the Russian Imperium: Abkhazia, Donetsk and Lugansk in Ukraine, and Transnistria in Moldavia. Numerous people had to flee to Georgia from South Ossetia in 2008. A great number were received at a settlement in Tserovani set up by the Georgian authorities—simple buildings arranged in a geometric pattern: a refugee camp.
The house that Robinson lives in with the rest of his family is in row 6. He was caught off guard by the war in Armenia in 2008 and was unable to return to South Ossetia. His wife still lives there, now as before, and is thus out of reach. While Robinson spends his days brooding and at times casts a glance at an old melodrama on television, life goes on in Tserovani. People pickle peperoni, little Robiko reads a story about a dangerous wolf, his little sister Barbare dances next to the table. In Reihe 6, Bidzina Gogiberidze and Lennart Hüper show life interrupted and life blossoming existing side by side. Neither of the two aspects is privileged, in contrast, it is precisely in the tension between the gaze back and the gaze ahead that the film pointedly dissolves in intense presence. (Bert Rebhandl)

Translation: Lisa Rosenblatt