IDFA International Competition Film ‘The Kartli Kingdom’ Unveils First Teaser-Trailer

EXCLUSIVE: A dozen films are set to premiere in the marquee category of International Competition at International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), the world’s largest nonfiction festival that opens today in the Dutch capital.

Among the films vying for the international prize is The Kartli Kingdom, directed by Tamar Kalandadze and Julien Pebrel, an exploration of a former sanatorium in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi that shelters refugees from the brutal 1990s war in Abkhazia. It was supposed to serve as a temporary refuge only, but 30 years later, it’s still in operation.

The Kartli Kingdom holds its world premiere on Sunday (at the Tuschinski 2 theater). We have your first look at the documentary in the teaser-trailer above.

The collapsing Kartli sanitorium, named for Georgia’s medieval kingdom, became a recreated “country” for those caught up in the war, as a release notes: “A farm, garden, terraces, and rooms where old VHS tapes revive memories of Abkhazia, their lost paradise. Through Tamuna, Irma, and others, the film reveals exile’s trauma and shared resilience. Even if time seems frozen in Kartli’s walls, nothing stays the same.”

“Our film is truly four-handed — born from long conversations and a shared perspective, but also shaped by our individual languages, histories, and cultures,” directors Kalandadze and Pebrel observed. “What emerged is an intimate portrait of a community told through its shelter, where past, present, and imagined futures blend into one emotional landscape. Memories resurface like an underground stream: personal stories, collective tales of the 1992 war, and family VHS archives that reveal an idealized past. Daily life — its tenderness, its tensions, its humor — is what guided our gaze, even as the community navigated displacement and the grief following Zouri’s tragic suicide. Through our presence as outsiders, people entrusted us with stories they might not have shared otherwise, allowing the film to become a space where the invisible could finally be spoken.”

In addition to its world premiere on Sunday, The Kartli Kingdom will screen at IDFA on Monday (Nov. 17), Tuesday (Nov. 18), Thursday (Nov. 20), Friday (Nov. 21), and Saturday (Nov. 22).

The documentary is a production of Georgia’s Sakdoc Film and France’s Habilis Productions. The Kartli Kingdom is produced by Ketevan Kipiani for Sakdoc Film and Jean-Baptiste Bonnet for Habilis Productions. Square Eyes is in charge of world sales.

Watch the teaser-trailer for The Kartli Kingdom above.