Ever Since I Knew Myself review – confronting the scars of childhood

Maka Gogaladze’s debut feature looks at generational differences in the context of Georgia’s education system and emphasis on collectivism The scars imprinted on impressionable young minds can never fully fade away. Aiming her lens at a rocky beach thrashed by crashing waves, Maka Gogaladze opens her intimate film with a painful anecdote from her adolescent years.

Through on-screen texts against a stormy sky, the Georgian film-maker recalls the time she dumped all of her poems into the garbage. The impulsive decision was a gesture of rebellion against her domineering mother; Gogaladze had wanted her to feel guilty. This debut feature would appear, at first glance, to be another act of revolt. Putting her mother in front of the camera, Gogaladze asks probing, at times blunt, questions about the strict education thrust on her in childhood.…