★★★★☆
In his latest documentary, award-winning director Stefan Tolz examines Georgia’s premier lemonade company — and why it failed to beat Coca-Cola.
Tolz’s latest film grabs the audience’s attention through its attempts to answer the following question: Did Joseph Stalin really attempt to create a Soviet lemonade that could compete against Coca-Cola, drawing a whole new frontline in the Cold War?
Yet his documentary — 28 years in the making — goes beyond this investigation, charting the entire history of the Lagidze family company, starting with its inception in a pharmacy in Kutaisi in the late 19th century. While Stalin becomes just one part of this story, however, examinations of Coca-Cola’s own origins and rise to fame permeate throughout the film, engaging in a deeper analysis of the world economy and capitalism today.
Mitrofon Lagidze rose to fame in the late 19th and early 20th century through his use of natural syrups to create lemonades, rather than via imported flavoured essences. The techniques he created are the exact same his grandson, Tornike Lagidze, uses today in the Tbilisi factory — ‘Coca-Cola is chemistry, […] ours is natural’.
They also became the basis for all lemonades created throughout the Soviet Union, the exclusivity of the Lagidze brand, though a state-owned enterprise at the time, marked by its presence on the Kremlin’s tables and with Stalin himself.
The first half of the film explores this rise to prominence, with Tolz reviewing the family archives as well as those in the US and Russia to discover if the story that Stalin ordered Mitrofan Lagidze to create a Soviet lemonade to wow US President Harry Truman really occurred. It’s a bit of a treasure hunt through hidden archives and paper trails spanning the globe — a story of American spies reporting on the production of a Tbilisi lemonade factory and of Kremlin power struggles over branding versus mass production.
This is only half the story, however, with Stalin’s death in 1953 acting as a natural break in the narrative. The rest of the film examines what came next for Lagidze, including covering the history of sodas in the Soviet Union, especially with the emergence of Pepsi, and then Coca-Cola, into the Soviet market, and what came after the re-emergence of capitalism in the market.
Tolz interviews a wide range of respondents, from nutrition experts to famed Soviet Georgian director Lana Gogoberidze. He also is not afraid to go where the trail leads, examining the rose oil industry in Bulgaria, questioning whether Lagidze was given to cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in Moldova, listening to Georgian–Jewish elders speak on the cultural memory of Lagidze in New York. Put together, the film presents an intriguing mosaic of Georgian history and marketing.
Interspersed throughout the more standard documentary shots are clips and behind-the-scenes takes of Tolz’s upcoming feature film on the Lagidze family and brand titled Just One Drop. It’s a bit of a curious choice, acting as a teaser or trailer for his own work, though it does help to set the scene in a nostalgic way as opposed to only using archival footage.
Another interesting decision Tolz makes is by having the narrator be Lagidze lemonade personified. At times, it can make the film feel a tad kitschy, detracting from the film’s stronger core.
Yet, in its entirety, Stalin’s Cola is another solid entry in Tolz’s repertoire, shining a light on both a little-known story from the Cold War as well as a deeper dive into one of Georgia’s most famous products.
Film details: Stalin’s Cola (2025), directed by Stefan Tolz, premiered at the 26th Tbilisi International Film Festival on 2 December 2025. It will be broadcast on Arte.tv from 7 December.
