What To Do with All This Love: The Zakaria Paliashvili Music School in Tbilisi

The Georgian Republic: an orthodox multi-ethnic mix in the wild Caucasus, the borderland between the East and West. On a hill above the capital city of Tbilisi, the plaster of the Zakaria-Paliashvili Music School for gifted children is crumbling, the stairs riddled with holes. Instruments have fallen out of tune, and many teachers are old enough to be their pupils’ great-grandparents.

Those who are allowed to step through the battered main entrance after the strict entrance exams do so with pride because former Paliashvili students regularly conquer the world’s stages: the violinist Lisa Batiashvili and pianist Khatia Buniatishvili were taught here. Children and their parents dream of such success; families move from remote regions to the capital to make their children’s education possible.

The film accompanies the students of the Paliashvili Music School and their teachers over the course of one school year. Can they cope with the pressure? What makes them quarrel, what makes them despair? And what motivates students and teachers time and again?What To Do with All This Love is an observant and character-based documentary about growing up and aging, farewells and new beginnings, great dreams and the art of improvisation.