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THE CHILDREN OF POPODIA
Directed by
Sofia Babluani
France, Georgia 2024 67 MIN
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Synopsis
In a remote part of Georgia near the Turkish border, where Christian and Muslim communities live alongside long-established traditions and divisions, Popodia and her husband Memao have created an unusual boarding school. Christian and Muslim teenagers live, study, play, help one another, argue, dream, and sometimes fall in love under the same roof. The school offers them free education and a space in which imagination, friendship, and shared experience matter more than religious differences. Its existence grew out of Popodia and Memao’s own difficult interfaith love story and their belief that a common future requires common memories. Observing the young residents with intimacy and humour, the film becomes a hopeful portrait of education, coexistence, freedom, and acceptance.
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Sofia Babluani
Sofia Babluani is a French-Georgian director and screenwriter. She studied fine arts in Paris and filmmaking in Brussels and has worked across directing, screenwriting, and film development. Her earlier short film What Can I Wish You Before the Fight? received international festival recognition and was broadcast by ARTE France. Alongside her filmmaking, Babluani has pursued academic research at EHESS in Paris focusing on the representation of absence in cinema and has worked within French and Georgian film institutions. The Children of Popodia, her feature documentary, received several international distinctions, including the Prix PRESENT at L’Europe autour de l’Europe in 2026. Her work explores identity, coexistence, memory, childhood, and the ways cinema can observe human relationships across cultural and religious boundaries.
Credits
- Director
- Sofia Babluani
- Screenplay
- Sofia Babluani
- Cinematography
- Gigi Samsonadze
- Editing
- Adrien Faucheux, Sofia Babluani, Élisa Zurfluh Faggianelli, Muriel Bucher
- Sound Design
- Beqa Vanishvili, Nassim El Mounabbih
- Cast
- Mama Mirian Samkhara, Shako Abashidze, Tsitsino Nana Antadze, Nasi Shainidze
- Producers
- Gela Babluani, Béatrice Borowiec (Les Films de la Strada, Cinema 13)
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