Wet Sand, directed by Elene Naveriani, was screened at the jubilee twentieth edition of the Zagreb Film Festival as part of the Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region, which consisted of three other excellent films: Alma Viva, Intergalde and Pink Moon. All films deal with the topic of death and old age, which is best summed up in a sentence from the film Alma Viva: “the living close the eyes of the dead, and the dead open the eyes of the living.”

In the opening scene of the film Wet Sand, old man Eliko writes a letter after watching in melancholy the sea and moonlight and wraps it around a bottle of wine as a gift. The scene is accompanied by the extremely suggestive and dark music of Swans, which gives the scene great strength and a dose of mystique. In the morning, Eliko is found hanged, and with the arrival of his granddaughter Moe, who is coming to organize the funeral, we slowly begin to uncover pieces of a mosaic of secrets kept hidden by a small Georgian village on the Black Sea coast. Moe is someone completely different from the seemingly warm-hearted people who enjoy a quiet life outside the city chaos she came from. Although she is aware of the apparently unprogressive atmosphere of the community she finds herself in, she is still surprised to find herself confronted with a complicated web of lies and betrayals. There is a brutal intolerance in the community and a rejection of diversity which is considered an unacceptable flaw that needs to be addressed at all costs. Initially, she did not manage well in what she came to do and accepted the help of local innkeeper Amnon and his assistant Fleshka. But the spirit released from the bottle of secrets slowly begins to stand in the way of everyone. 

As she slowly unravels the secret of her grandfather's life, Moe searches for her own identity, and Fleshka and a local police officer want to find a way out of the life they are currently living through her. The small and conservative environment of the Georgian village does not easily forgive derailment from conformist rails, which is the reason why some people base their lives on lies. As Eliko says in his farewell letter: “See you in paradise, or some other place where we will no longer have to hide.”

A cathartic ending in which each side gets something, but at the same time loses, is one of the most impressive parts of the film. In Fleshka (and vice versa), Moe found a new sense of life in which she would no longer have to hide, lie and suppress her own identity in favor of the cruel and ruthless conformism of the small environment.

Bebe Sesitahsvili as Moe and Gia Agumava as Amnon played great roles in this film. It can be said that the sea plays an almost equal role in this film, which, like other characters, has its own secrets waiting to be revealed. The film began with the scenes of the sea, and ends with them, as we watch the sea wash away the sand on the shore and life can move on.

In addition to the aforementioned acting achievements and impressive photography, in the film, which is a great ode to love, it is necessary to additionally mention excellent music. Swans and Gira literally scream in the song "Our Love Lies "...They suffer for love, and they're sick to death, God save us now, we Believe in love..."  The director very impressively raises and lowers the rhythm and dynamics of the film with the music, so she speeds it up with the songs of Foo Fighters, for example, and skillfully slows it down with the music of Dinah Washington.

The heroes of this film do not fight for some higher cause, they simply fight the entire time only for what belongs to them. Sometimes what we're fighting for comes at a price, and in this movie, that is the truth. The dead allow the living to finally live their lives with dignity, as they may not have been able to before, and the Georgian province can, unfortunately, be recognized with this theme in many parts of the world. Wet Sand is an extremely deep and touching love drama imbued with mystery and elements of a crime story that is also a wonderful hymn to diversity. That is why the universal message that the film gives us is important: Feelings and truth are crucial in the fight against conformism that suffocates identities that are “different.”