The opening night of the 43rd edition of the Festival was a small approach to the Georgian Caucasus, a taste both in the table set on stage and in the dishes that were served of the history, culture and traditions of this place. Warred by empires since land has been a cause for dispute for humanity, a confluence of peoples, religions, languages ​​and alphabets. The show, Gaumarjos!, from our perspective, that of the tourist, the athlete, the mountaineer and the spectator, resorting to arts such as theater, cinema, music and dance and to help us know a little more beyond the majesty of its mountains.

It all started at the dinner of what Nina represented, the archetype of the tourist in love who has immersed herself in the culture, amazed by the festive, culinary and musical traditions that she discovered in this corner of the Caucasus. The copious meals, the toasts as an art, the showers of words and local wines. She, flooding her friends with this enthusiasm, contrasted and at the same time complemented the testimony of Mariam Khatchvani. Daughter of Ushguli, in Upper Svaneti, the highest village in Europe, she explained to us how she discerns between which old traditions to preserve and which to abandon, through her cinema. Kidnapping of girls to be forcibly married, not being able to inherit family property because of being a woman, are problems that she has addressed, realities that escape the visitors who are beginning to fill the hostels that her people are building on the properties of her native village, these where tradition is conveniently dressed up as law and prohibits its access to women.

The Georgian Caucasus for us, from afar, are imposing mountains and peaks, walls, slopes, valleys, routes and paths. Expeditions, ascents, descents and crossings. The experience of Xavi Llongueras as a mountain guide in the area, or that of the elite sport of snowboarder Núria Castán where she makes an annual stop, are parts of intermittent realities, which coincide in time, and sometimes in space, with diverse cultures and peoples. On Friday, we got to know them a little.