''Power Trip'' is a

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

by director Paul Devlin that describes the electricity crisis in the country of

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

several years after the fall of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. In 1999, Georgia's government sold the electric utility company Telasi to

AES Corporation The AES Corporation is an American utility and power generation company. It owns and operates power plants, which it uses to generate and sell electricity to end users and intermediaries like utilities and industrial facilities. AES is headquart ...

, a multinational company headquartered in Virginia. The film follows several AES-Telasi employees as the company tries to turn a profit and ensure that power is consistently available to customers in the face of widespread corruption and failure to pay electricity bills by both commercial and residential customers. According to AES-Telasi staff, 90% of customers were not paying for electricity when the company took over, partly because salaries were extremely low and partly because during the Soviet era, the state had provided free electricity. The film shows many shocking pictures of illegal wiring that people rigged up to steal electricity from buildings with power, creating serious safety hazards and straining the power grid. Government corruption ensured that some companies received electricity even if they did not pay for it for years. The film looks at the chaos and riots that occurred in

Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million p ...

after AES-Telasi started cutting off electricity to customers with unpaid bills. The film exposes corruption in the highest levels of government as well as the plight of the Georgian people as they struggle for power. The film ends by noting that

, having spent many tens of millions of dollars yet with profitability nowhere in sight, sold Telasi to a Russian company.

Screening and reception

''Power Trip'' has screened in 60 countries, theatrically across the United States and on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

's ''

Independent Lens ''Independent Lens'' is a weekly television series airing on PBS featuring documentary films made by independent filmmakers. Past seasons of ''Independent Lens'' were hosted by Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Terrence H ...

''. The film was nominated for an

Independent Spirit Award The Independent Spirit Awards (abbreviated Spirit Awards and originally known as the FINDIE or Friends of Independents Awards), founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glas ...

in 2003, and has won 10 film festival awards, including top prizes at the

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the fest ...

, Hot Docs in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, and the

Florida Film Festival The Florida Film Festival, produced by Enzian Theater in Maitland, Florida, is an annual international film festival. Overview The Festival includes narrative and documentary features and shorts, animation, midnight movies, and educational forum ...

. Stephen Holden of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' described the film as a "superbly balanced and organized documentary" and "a skillful assemblage of newsreel clips, cartoons ridiculing the American interlopers, television commercials and interviews with power officials and ordinary Georgians."

References

External links

*
''Power Trip'' on PBS's Independent Lens
* {{IMDb title, 0358647, Power Trip 2003 films 2003 documentary films American documentary films Films set in Tbilisi Documentary films about energy 2000s Georgian-language films Documentary films from Georgia (country) 2000s English-language films 2000s American films