Review | Smiling Georgia — a tragicomic documentary on the wounds left behind by electoral theatre

★★★★★

Luka Beradze’s first full-length film offers a deeply human and surprisingly funny portrait of broken promises and political manipulation in Georgia.

In the lead-up to the 2012 parliamentary elections, Georgia’s then-President Mikheil Saakashvili began a new programme, Smiling Georgia, which promised new teeth for the poorest Georgian residents in exchange for a vote in favour of his United National Movement (UNM) party. Dentists began pulling teeth in preparation for replacements, but after the UNM lost the election, the programme was abruptly halted, leaving people toothless.

Beradze’s 2023 documentary on this endeavour, named after the programme itself, is a tragicomedy that leaves viewers asking: How can this even be real?

The film opens in the sleepy village of Usakhelo — which literally translates as the village ’without a name’ — in western Georgia as Beradze conducts a series of interviews with residents recalling how they lost their teeth.  Despite the absurdity of what they went  through, the interviews are full of warmth, dignity, wit, self-irony, and the famous Imeretian humour.

The cinematography offers a poetic lens into the rhythm of rural Georgian life, portraying an organic connection to nature, aging, and perseverance. Each shot invites viewers to slow down and reflect.

According to Beradze, the film was originally supposed to be 15 minute documentary, but after he observed the cycle of the elections being run years after Saakashvili’s fall from power in 2013, the documentary turned into a broader commentary on how successive politicians, across party lines, have preyed on the vulnerabilities of the rural population, using everything from dental care to televised pity as tools for influence.

‘It would have been great if [Georgian Dream founder] Bidzina [Ivanishvili] replaced the teeth for these people’, Rostom Tsartidze, a local candidate running for election, says in the film.

‘If I were him, I would’ve done it. [...] Saakashvili started it, but didn’t finish. Saying “Oh, you voted for Saakashvili, so I won’t help you now” — that’s not how a real man acts. Just fix their teeth, and they’ll vote for you now’, Tsartidze adds.

The film doesn’t spare the media either.

One of the hilarious and biting moments comes when a TV personality visits a village in the Chiatura region with a film crew and a group of dentists, conveniently timed with the election cycle. But the villagers are no longer easy to fool. Most refuse to speak to her, and she’s visibly outraged when she finds out that one of the few people who agreed to be on her show had already had her teeth fixed — by her son.

As the film unfolds, it reveals a broader disillusionment amongst Georgian voters. The villagers show little interest in who holds power. By the end, Georgian Dream wins the election, but only 28% of voters participate — a quiet yet powerful statement of public detachment.

At its core, Smiling Georgia is a mirror held up to Georgia’s politicians, showing the wounds left behind by electoral theatre. It is not only surreal and bittersweet, but also asks how real change can occur when promises are treated as punchlines and people as props — a message important for politicians globally.

Though the film was partly financed by the Georgian National Film Centre in 2019, Beradze is one of the filmmakers currently boycotting the institution, criticising how the Georgian Dream government has tightened control over the country’s cultural output. During the film’s world premiere at the prestigious Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2023, Beradze used his platform to question whether a film like this could receive state support today. In response, the film centre has downplayed the film’s success, referring to it dismissively as ‘the second Georgian film’ screened at the festival.

Film details: Smiling Georgia (2023), directed by Luka Beradze. Watch on Klassiki here or on Cavea+ here.

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