Power Trip
A Paul Devlin production
SAN FRANCISCO -- Paul Devlin's wonderful documentary, shown as part of the 46th San Francisco International Film Festival, examines the tribulations of the former Soviet republic of Georgia's newly private (since 1999) power company, AES-Telasi. In the process, he illuminates a whole country. "Power Trip" may have difficulty finding an American audience (it has no domestic distributor yet), but with the right marketing, this film could entrance documentary film aficionados. It's also a natural for PBS.
Devlin lucidly packs an extraordinary amount of information into the film's 85 minutes, weaving a compelling and passionate tale out of the chaos of a country rebuilding itself. Piers Lewis, Devlin's college buddy and regional manager at AES-Telasi, tries to up the collection rate on electricity bills from a paltry 10% to a more acceptable 50%. Georgians, used to subsidized utilities under the Soviets, now resort to stealing electricity any way they can. Flimsy, self-installed wires snake all over the capital city of Tbilisi. Meters are routinely vandalized. Power-pilferers are often electrocuted making connections they shouldn't. (The average monthly power bill is $25; the average monthly salary ranges from $15-$45.) And payments are no guarantee that customers will receive power: Widespread corruption leads to current being diverted from AES to more favored institutions and corporations.
Like Lewis and Devlin, you begin to fall in love with the Georgians, their cynicism, humor, determination to survive, corruptions both charmingly petty and alarmingly criminal and love for their country. It comes as a shock when Devlin relates the devastating violence Georgians have lived under for the past dozen years since their independence: civil war and unrest, assassinations both attempted and accomplished and cold winters with intermittent power. Devlin also introduces us to people at all levels of Georgian society, including the charismatic AES-Telasi general director Michael Scholey, a Brit with an unruly eyebrow, and investigative journalist Leeka Basilaia, who earnestly endeavors to unearth Ministerial misdeeds despite danger to her personal safety.
Devlin portrays the torturous progress in rebuilding and reforming a country, encapsulating both hope and despair in this enlightening film.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Paul Devlin's wonderful documentary, shown as part of the 46th San Francisco International Film Festival, examines the tribulations of the former Soviet republic of Georgia's newly private (since 1999) power company, AES-Telasi. In the process, he illuminates a whole country. "Power Trip" may have difficulty finding an American audience (it has no domestic distributor yet), but with the right marketing, this film could entrance documentary film aficionados. It's also a natural for PBS.
Devlin lucidly packs an extraordinary amount of information into the film's 85 minutes, weaving a compelling and passionate tale out of the chaos of a country rebuilding itself. Piers Lewis, Devlin's college buddy and regional manager at AES-Telasi, tries to up the collection rate on electricity bills from a paltry 10% to a more acceptable 50%. Georgians, used to subsidized utilities under the Soviets, now resort to stealing electricity any way they can. Flimsy, self-installed wires snake all over the capital city of Tbilisi. Meters are routinely vandalized. Power-pilferers are often electrocuted making connections they shouldn't. (The average monthly power bill is $25; the average monthly salary ranges from $15-$45.) And payments are no guarantee that customers will receive power: Widespread corruption leads to current being diverted from AES to more favored institutions and corporations.
Like Lewis and Devlin, you begin to fall in love with the Georgians, their cynicism, humor, determination to survive, corruptions both charmingly petty and alarmingly criminal and love for their country. It comes as a shock when Devlin relates the devastating violence Georgians have lived under for the past dozen years since their independence: civil war and unrest, assassinations both attempted and accomplished and cold winters with intermittent power. Devlin also introduces us to people at all levels of Georgian society, including the charismatic AES-Telasi general director Michael Scholey, a Brit with an unruly eyebrow, and investigative journalist Leeka Basilaia, who earnestly endeavors to unearth Ministerial misdeeds despite danger to her personal safety.
Devlin portrays the torturous progress in rebuilding and reforming a country, encapsulating both hope and despair in this enlightening film.
- 5/8/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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