“Caucasian Blues”, a Collaboration That Couldn’t Find Its Voice

2026-01-25 - 21:06

Listen to the AI generated audio article. Your browser does not support the audio element. For the first time in my life, the most emotional moment of a film came during the ending credits. Seeing around 60 Armenian, Georgian and Azerbaijani names roll together stirred something in my pessimistic heart. For a brief moment, I saw a world where creative collaboration works. Not a utopia, but a real space that offers hope for emancipation and change through artistic tools, which are among the most powerful for reshaping our narratives. And our South Caucasian narratives, so entangled in ethno-nationalistic molds, desperately need this more than ever. I wish that were all I had to say after a screening of Caucasian Blues. I wish it offered strength and optimism for imagining a future together. But it does not. Roles Frozen in Time Caucasian Blues follows three young women and one young man from the South Caucasus: Ani, Nino, Sevinj and Emin. Their paths cross in Tbilisi, where they face intimate challenges tied to the conflicts of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. Ani and Emin feel an instant attraction, despite quickly understanding they’re Armenian and Azerbaijani. Emin’s fragile mental health, shaped by his experience as a young veteran of the 2020 war plunges him into a sense of despair. He responds by volunteering for a mission in Ukraine, which turns out to be a scam to send young men to fight for Russia. Thus begins a road movie of sorts. Ani, Nino and Sevinj (Emin’s sister, who came from Baku worried about her brother) set out to find him before he is sent away. Through these new relationships, these young people try to overcome their fractured past. Shot in all three countries, it is the first Armenian-Azerbaijani-Georgian feature co-production of