The Men’s Land

Young Ana dreams of a career as a singer. When her father leaves her a plot of land with a house on it, she plans to take out a small loan to turn it into a guesthouse and finance her education.

But then she comes up against customs which are centuries old. In the mountain villages of Ushguli in Georgia, custom dictates that if a family has no son, the family’s land and house are inherited by another male relative.

Ana can do nothing without her male cousin, and to her great frustration, he claims the inheritance for himself. As the snow falls, the men sit playing a game on the veranda, while Ana softly sings a traditional folk song. With understated imagery, this carefully composed film tells a simple but powerful story about the persistence of a patriarchal system in a changing world.