Drawing Lots

The late Georgian writer, filmmaker, and professor Zaza Khalvashi presents a whimsical yet authentic story about everyday life in this posthumously released feature film, which was completed with the help of his daughter, Tamta Khalvashi. Drawing Lots is a character study set in a coastal town where an apartment building and a courtyard serve as an amphitheater for a mysterious power struggle among the residents, whose lives are intertwined.

Echoing the unexpected outbursts of petty neighborhood intrigue and the distinctive locations familiar from the films of Béla Tarr, as well as the dryly comic undertone that characterizes Aki Kaurismäki’s body of work, the black-and-white imagery of *Drawing Lots* lends a remarkable depth to everyday interactions. With masterful skill, Khalvashi offers the viewer only a glimpse of the secrets and dreams of the apartment building’s residents: a melodramatic electric guitarist, teenagers suffering from unrequited love, a classical violinist in the midst of a midlife crisis, and a recently returned criminal. These fleeting glimpses give rise to intrigue and tension as the residents’ daily lives and voyeuristic tendencies collide.

Alongside actors from the Batumi Theater, Khalvashi casts amateurs to explore the duality of life in a meticulous yet farcical manner. Dark pasts and conflicts can be overcome by coming together as one, with the characters finding a certain sense of redemption in supporting one another as individuals and as a community.