Posted by Paul Devlin:
While I was shooting Power Trip in Tbilisi, I kept hearing about a war that nobody seemed to know of outside Georgia. The territory of Abkhazia had split away from Georgia and many young Georgian men headed north in a fever of patriotism to take it back. Unfortunately, these ragtag militia were mismatched against far superior Russian-backed forces. The result was massive casualties and many horror stories for the Georgians.
One of the characters in Power Trip, Datto Tabidze experienced this conflict first hand. As can be seen from this piece, the trauma was too much for him to talk about. Now of course, a more recent, much higher profile conflict over Abkhazia between Georgia and Russia has brought this issue into worldwide consciousness.
Datto was a compelling character. In addition to working for AES-Telasi, he was an entrepreneur. On the side of a hill above Tbilisi, the rock had been hollowed out as a passageway between two park areas. Datto had developed a huge project to convert part of this cave area into a giant dance club. Unfortunately, some unsavory characters wanted a piece of the project and Datto refused to pay the extortion. On camera, he showed me the scars from the bullet that went through his knee and out the back of his calf.
The project was never completed and the segment did not make the final film.
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