Abstract

Caucasian countries, which lived under the Soviet Union for many years and whose cinema was shaped by the influence of Russia in this sense, have developed national cinema in order to build identity and belonging after independence. In this context, Georgia and Azerbaijan, which constitute the sample of the study, have produced films in which cultural values come to the fore.
The Georgian and Azerbaijani cinemas, which have continued the social realism movement inherited from the Soviets, have transferred the war processes in the country to the big screen in this context. The film Tangerines (2013), written and directed by Georgian director Zaza Urushadze, is inspired by a real-life event and tells the story of an Estonian village in Abkhazia during the 1992-1993 Georgian-Abkhazian War, where an elderly Estonian Ivo takes in two enemies, Chechen and Georgian, who were seriously wounded in the war. Drawing attention to the discriminatory side of war, the film also emphasises that the problems between people can unite around tolerance.
The Azerbaijani film Nabat (2014), directed by Elçin Musaoğlu, also focuses on the consequences of the Karabakh war. While the film shows the war to the audience by adhering to the local characteristics and cultural codes of the Karabakh region in the representation of a mother who is devoted to her home and homeland, it also draws attention to the cruelty of the war.
The study was analysed by descriptive analysis method. According to the results obtained from the study, while both films show the difficult sides of the war to the audience, they also include human emotions that change with the war, regardless of religion, language and nationality.