Zaza Urushadze’s deftly humorous and humanist fable tells the story of Ivo, who makes wooden crates in his workshop to contain the harvest from his neighbor Margus’ tangerine grove. Then one day, a skirmish in the civil war between former Soviet countries leaves two wounded survivors on Ivo’s doorstep: Achmed, a Chechen, and Nika, a Georgian. Ivo calmly declares his home a neutral zone and takes them in, after extracting promises that no bloodshed will occur under his roof. Initially the soldiers are hell-bent on killing one another once they’ve recovered, but forced cohabitation brings an unforeseen humanizing effect. How long the peace will last is a question elegantly considered in this deeply pacifist drama, as tense as any thriller. Nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar. (2013, 87 min., in Estonian, Russian and Georgian w/ English subtitles)
