For 19 years, Mzia Sabanadze has operated her apartment building’s elevator with such devotion that it’s become an extension of herself. Indeed, she’s rarely left the concrete structure, where she resides in Tbilisi, Georgia, for two decades. Her life almost exclusively unfolds between her cluttered apartment unit, where she keeps a watchful eye on the elevator via CCTV, and the nearby units of friends.
Mzia Leaves the Room follows Sabanadze as she journeys far from home for the first time in many years, travelling to Georgia’s Racha region – a place of sentimental value to her and her late husband, whose loss she still mourns. Shooting on film, the US director Madeline Leary draws out her subject’s idiosyncratic charms, as well as the contrasts between the industrial, post-Soviet character of Georgia’s largest city and the beauty of its countryside. This small slice of a single life culminates in a warm and rewarding journey. Tracing Sabanadze’s path into the world and back again, the film invites viewers to reflect on the shapeshifting contours of grief, and the rituals – small and large – that give our lives meaning.