Letters to Max (Eric Baudelaire; Abkhazia, 2014)

Letters to Max stretches out across a series of seventy-four letters that artist Eric Baudelaire wrote and sent from his home in Paris to Max Gvinjia, the former foreign minister of Abkhazia. A stateless state situated along the eastern shores of the Black Sea in the Caucasus, Abkhazia is officially recognized by only a few other countries. Baudelaire wrote these letters thinking that they would be returned to him, stamped “destination unknown”; yet, to his surprise Max received them. Since Abkhazia’s post office cannot handle international mail, Max responded to the letters with a series of audio recordings, which comprise the film’s soundtrack. Shot in Abkhazia, where Baudelaire has been traveling intermittently since 2000, the film explores the fraught existence of a region caught between the polarizing, post-Soviet narratives of East and West. An intimate portrait not only of Gvinjia, but also of a contested territory, the film unfolds in slow, epistolary reflections that contrast with the rapid-fire pace of our hyper-networked lives. 

• Written, photographed by Baudelaire, with Max Gvinjia. (103 mins, In English and Russian with English subtitles, Color, HD video, From LUX)