EFF: Brighton 4th

“The melancholy-infused narrative neatly balances rueful humor with genuine sweetness.” — Variety

Former wrestling champion Kakhi (Levan Tediashvili, himself a former Olympic wrestling champion) always has his family on his conscience, which leads him on a journey from his home in the Republic of Georgia to visit his son Soso in the Russian-speaking neighborhood of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. There he finds Soso living in a shabby boarding house populated by a colourful group of fellow Georgian immigrants, and heavily in debt. Kakhi sets his mind to helping his hapless son, leading to situations as often comic as they are dire. 

In many ways Brighton 4th is a classic American immigrant story with its focus on an ex-pat community struggling to make a new live for themselves, but it also has a distinctive Eastern European flavour with its bursts of droll humour that underpin moments of tragedy and the importance of music as expressed in the scenes where the characters keep their culture alive through song. 

Rating

E

Language

Georgian, English, Russian (English subtitles)

Cast

Levan Tediashvili, Kakhi Kavsadze, Nadezhda Mikhalkova, Giorgi Tabidze

Director

Levan Koguashvili