A State in a State is an experimental documentary film that follows the construction, disruption and fragmentation of railroads in the South Caucasus and Caspian regions. It examines railways as the technical materialization of the fragile political borders that have re-emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Moving around the scenes of delay and waiting that constitute cargo mobility, the film reads the optimistic narratives about the New Silk Road against the grain. It observes how the iron foundation of connectivity can be used as a weapon of exclusion and geopolitical sabotage. Dotting the same lines, other forms of sabotage are deployed by workers to disrupt the political violence. Looking at historic and current practices of resistance, A State in a State explores the potential of railroads for building a different, infrastructural consciousness and the lasting, transnational, kinship among the people who live and work around them.

Tekla Aslanishvili is an artist, filmmaker and essayist based between Berlin and Tbilisi. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and a postgraduate fellow at the Berlin Centre for Advanced Studies in Arts and Sciences (BAS) at the Berlin University of the Arts. She completed her studies at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts in 2009 and holds an MA in Experimental Film and New Media from the Berlin University of the Arts. Her work has been screened and exhibited internationally at Berlinische Galerie; SculptureCenter, New York; Taipei Biennial 2023; Wiels, Brussels; Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Transmediale 2023, Berlin; LOOP Festival – Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona; NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore; 14th Baltic Triennial and Tbilisi Architecture Biennial. She was a Digital Earth Fellow (2019), a nominee for the Ars-Viva Art Prize (2021) and a recipient of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Award (2020).

A State in a State (2022), digital video, 47 min. Courtesy of the artist. 

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