Dir.: Otar Iosseliani; Script: Otar Iosseliani; Phot.: William Lubtchansky; Ed.: Otar Iosseliani, Marie-Agnès Blum; Mus.: Nicholas Zourabichvili; Cast: Amiran Amiranachvili, Dato Gogibedachvili, Guio Tzintsadze, Nino Ordjonikidze, Keti Kapanadze, Alexi Djakeli, Niko Kartsivadze; Prod.: Martine Marignac, Pierre Grise Production, 52, rue Charlot, 75003 Paris (France), tél.: (3) 40 27 79 06, fax: (3) 40 27 97 16; Sales: Pierre Grise Distribution, 21, avenue du Maine, 75015 Paris (France), tél.: (3) 44 45 20 45, fax: (3) 44 45 00 40 .

In this new political comedy, Otar Iosseliani, aging enfant terrible of Georgian cinema, turns his earlier snipes at Soviet authority into outright war in this satirical fable set in Georgia of the Middle Ages, the Communist era and the present day (with a bit of the contemporary Paris of arms dealers and war refugees). By using similar storylines and characters in each era he shows how, despite the passing years (and Marx's theory of history), nothing much changes. Throughout the layered slices of history, the same actors appear and reappear, as do violence and war, torture and totalitarianism, regardless of the period or political system. "When violence is presented as a manifestation of stupidity and becomes an object of ridicule, when violence is a matter of laughter and scorn, then it has been put in its rightful place." -- Otar Iosseliani "A dry, caustic variations on the theme of violence in Georgia -- the refinements of medieval torture, the theatre of the absurd of totalitarianism, the miserable madness of modern civil wars." -- Gilles Verdiani (Première)