Tangerines (film)

Tangerines (Georgian: მანდარინები Mandarinebi, Estonian: Mandariinid) is a 2013 Estonian-Georgian film, directed, produced and written by Zaza Urushadze (Georgian film director and screenwriter). The film carries a pacifist message and examines wartime realities regarding the meaning of how to be human. It was filmed in Guria, Georgia.

It has been nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards. It was among the five nominated films at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards for best foreign language film.

Plot

In a rural village of Ethnic Estonians in Abkhazia Georgia, Ivo (Lembit Ulfsak) and Margus (Elmo Nüganen) are the only who have not fled for Estonia after the outbreak of the 1992–1993 War in Abkhazia. Margus is waiting to leave until he can hopefully harvest his lucrative tangerine crop, while his friend Ivo is a carpenter who attempts to make enough wooden crates to hold all the unpicked tangerines. Ivo however doesn't reveal his reasons for staying. Two ominous Chechen soldiers show up and extort food from Ivo, but leave peacefully and with respect for a lone, elderly grandfather, who is only minding his own work. The soldiers however get into a firefight with Georgian soldiers in front of Margus' house, leaving only one alive from each side. Ahmed (Giorgi Nakashidze), a Chechen mercenary on the Abkhazian side, and Niko (Mikheil Meskhi), a Georgian volunteer, are both gravely wounded, and Ivo brings them into his home to nurse them back to health.