Gela Babluani follows his critically acclaimed directorial debut 13 (TZAMETI) with Sundance award-winner LEGACY (L’HERITAGE) – a poignant tale of a long-lasting family feud with fatal repercussions, released by Revolver Entertainment at the end of September 2007.
Co-directed by Gela’s father Témur Babluani, and starring his brother Georges, LEGACY is a family affair both in creation and story, with the Georgian filmmakers’ home country providing an enigmatic backdrop against which the film unfolds.
Three young French friends, Jean (Stanislas Merhar), Céline (Olga Lenegrad) and Pat (Sylvie Testud), arrive in Tbilissi to take possession of a castle one of them has inherited. Accompanied by their interpreter, Nikolaï (Pascal Bongard), they start their two-day bus trip to the mountains during which they meet an old man (Leo Gaparidze) and his grandson (George Babluani) traveling with an empty coffin.
The two men are going to the enemy clan's village where the grandfather is to be sacrificed in order to put an end to the rivalry between the two families, an end to a long-running blood feud. Jean, Celine and Pat are intrigued by their story and decide to follow them to the village to film events as they happen.
Along their journey they are introduced to the peculiarities of rural Georgian life and people as they attempt to delve deeper into the lives and circumstances of the strange couple they have met. When they arrive at their destination, however, they begin to regret their curiosity when things don’t go as planned...
