Their Helicopter

by Salome Jashi
22', Betacam SP, Georgia, 2006

The Ardoteli family discovers an object of civilization: a military helicopter from Chechnya that went down ten years earlier in the Khevsureti region, in Georgia. Since it proved useless as anything else, it became a shelter for cows, and the children made it into their playground. In a land completely without pylons, electrical wires or modern buildings, the remains of the helicopter are seen as unique and precious. Though its sunken “eyes” it tells a story of the old, young, and very young Ardotelis that besides this know nothing of modernity. But in this isolated village, where even the trees seem like enemy creatures and the sun rarely shines, this sign of our diseased civilization – a war machine – becomes humanized, and rendered poetic, with the glance of children who, rocking, fall asleep, in this remote corner of the mountains, lost in the sky.

Salome Jashi
Born in 1981, Salome Jashi earned a degree from Tiblishi State University and a diploma from the Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Management before working for the Georgian Broadcasting Company Rustavi 2. She subsequently completed a master degree in documentary film technique at the University of London, and is one of the founders of the production house, Sakdoc Film.