Shindisi – Telling A Dreadful War Story With Sound & Music

Shindisi is one of those projects we are very proud of. Our friend, producer Vladimer Katcharava put us in the loop from the very beginning of this project. We were looking forward to working on it since then. One reason for our excitement was, of course, the challenge which comes with war movies. Shindisi was very special, as it is directed by brilliant director Dito Tsintsadze (“Lost Killers”, “Invasion”). It is a great mixture of war movie action style and art-house style drama. As we were assigned to do both music and sound design, we decided to create something special and use both powers together to tell a very realistic story in a very emotional way.

The movie is based on real events that occurred during the Russian military intervention in Georgia in 2008. Shindisi is the name of the place where Russian occupation forces sieged Georgian military after the peace corridor was promised. This is when ordinary villagers took risks to save wounded Georgian soldiers.

Our composer, Zviad Mgebry, and sound designer, Beso Kacharava spent a good amount of time researching this particular episode of the 2008 Georgian-Russian war and the psychological moment of ending up in a siege after the soldiers thought the war was over. They interviewed soldiers who fought in Afghanistan and also had the privilege to talk to veterans who fought in that particular episode. It was important to the whole team to understand the emotion the person feels during such a devastating time and they tried to emulate it. Beso and Zviad also consulted with several Leuthenants to have a very accurate background narrative in the movie.

We consider Shindisi being one of the best hero movies in independent Georgian history and are very proud to have worked on it.