After recovering from tuberculosis Mariam has a recurring nightmare about being kept high up in the mountains, in the middle of the forest in an old palace where outcasts live. The building is majestic but inhabitants are rejected from society. One day, Mariam goes to meet the secret community to overcome her fear.
In becoming friends with the tuberculosis patients of Abastumani and in sharing joy and pain with them, Mariam finally overcomes her fear. But Abastumani shares a forgotten story that was never told, the ghosts of the past reveal something much more sinister than Mariam’s personal nightmare, they expose the nightmare of a whole country.
4000 deaths every day
Tuberculosis (TB) is a curable disease, yet it remains the world’s deadliest infectious illness, claiming around 4,000 lives every day. Despite international commitments to end TB by 2030, scientific progress remains insufficient and funding inadequate.
At the same time, stigma continues to force millions of people worldwide to hide their diagnosis. Meanwhile, in much of the Western world, TB is widely perceived as a disease of the past. As a result of these misconceptions, nearly four million people worldwide are overlooked by healthcare systems every year, and many die needlessly from a curable disease.
After the screening the authors of the film and the exhibition are joined by Dr. Lucica Ditiu, an expert in TB, for a conversation about the illness, its stigmatization in the society and the future prospects of battling it.
Exhibtion
This screening is organized in relation to the exhibition Hospitality, curated by Natalia Sudova for Bradwolff Projects, presented from 22 February to 24 March at Bradwolff Projects, located in a former surgical building of the historic Burgerziekenhuis in Amsterdam East. The exhibition explicitly addresses tuberculosis-related stigma, which varies across cultures but has devastating consequences everywhere. The project brings together TB survivors, their relatives, healthcare professionals, scientists, and policymakers, opening conversations often avoided in clinical or political contexts.
About the speakers
Mariam Chachia is an award-winning documentary filmmaker from Georgia, the founder of the film production company OpyoDoc and Kino Elva, also the co-founder of DOCA Documentary Association Georgia, and a member of the Georgian and European Film Academy. Mariam’s works have been screened at prestigious film festivals such as IDFA, Shanghai IFF, DOK Leipzig, CPH:DOX, New York IFF, True/False IFF, Dok.Fest Munich, Thessaloniki and many more.
Dr. Lucica Ditiu is a Romanian physician and public health expert who has acted as the Executive Director of the Stop TB Partnership since May 2011. Under her leadership, the organization has acquired a clear identity as one of the most influential advocates of universal health coverage and a world without TB.
Paulina Siniatkina is an artist and activist who works with a form of autobiographical reflective research. Her socially-oriented practice is driven by her own survival of tuberculosis (TB) in 2015 and is dedicated to fighting stigma and rethinking what is considered “conventional.”
Speakers
Director: Mariam Chachia, Nik Voigt
Length: 74′
Country of origin: Georgia, Poland
Language: Georgian
Subtitles: English
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