Director: Tinatin Kajrishvili
A vanished statue turns a mining town's faith into suspicion in Citizen Saint, a slow-burn drama about belief, superstition, and the outsider who arrives right when everything unravels.
What is Citizen Saint about?
The stone cross on the main square of a struggling mining town has always carried a protective statue of a local saint, the kind of quiet fixture nobody questions until it's gone. When the cross comes down for routine repair, the statue disappears with it, and the miners who depended on its presence start reading meaning into every coincidence that follows. Their unease sharpens into something closer to fear once an unfamiliar man begins turning up around town, arriving with no clear explanation just as the community's luck seems to shift. Director Tinatin Kajrishvili builds the film less around plot mechanics than atmosphere, letting the town's economic strain and its residents' need for something to believe in do most of the dramatic work. The mystery of the missing statue becomes a lens for watching how quickly communal faith curdles into scapegoating when people feel powerless.
Cast & crew
Levan Berikashvili and George Babluani lead an ensemble of largely local faces that gives the town a lived-in, specific feel rather than a generic backdrop. Mari Kitia and Gia Burjanadze bring texture to the surrounding cast, with Temiko Chichinadze and Lia Abuladze filling out a community that reads as genuinely interconnected rather than assembled for the camera.
Context & significance
A co-production between Bulgaria, France, and Georgia released in 2023, Citizen Saint sits in a tradition of Eastern European cinema that uses isolated, economically depressed settings to examine larger questions about faith and community under strain. The mining-town backdrop grounds the story's more folkloric elements in a recognizable, present-day reality rather than pure allegory.
Where & how to watch
Citizen Saint is available on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, making the film's dialogue-driven drama easy to follow for Farsi-speaking viewers. Reading about the film requires no account at all, and watching it only asks for a free K-Time login, with no cost involved in browsing the catalog.