Since Otar Left

Since Otar Left original French title Depuis quOtar est parti... is a 2003 film by director Julie Bertuccelli, recounting the lives of three Georgian women in modernday Tbilisi. It focuses on the attempts of a mother and daughter, Marina Nino Khomasuridze and Ada Dinara Drukarova, to hide the death of Marinas brother in Paris from her elderly mother, Eka Esther Gorintin. The film was widely wellreceived, and won the coveted Critics Week Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

At the opening of the film, the audience learns that Otar Gogebashvili, although a doctor by profession, has recently moved to France because of the difficult economic situation in newly independent Georgia. In Paris, he works illegally on construction sites in order to financially support his family back in Georgia. Eka eagerly awaits Otars regular phone calls and the money he sends home from France. The difference between the generations is apparent Eka loves French culture, speaks perfect French but remains a Stalinist, even in 2002, whereas Ada is quite Westernized, and longs to follow her uncles path and move to the West. Marina has university degree but due to the high unemployment in Post Soviet Georgia sells heirlooms at the market.Their life then changes drastically when Marina receives a call from Otars friend, Niko Duta Skhirtladze, who had accompanied him to France. Niko bears bad news Otar has been killed in an accident. Eka is elderly and fragile, and Marina and Ada both agree that the shock of the death of her beloved son could kill her. In a similar manner to the German film Good Bye Lenin, which was released in the same year, the pair decides to conceal Otars death from Eka. ........

Source: Wikipedia