Based on a dialog between the director, Maka Gogaladze, and her mother about the pressures from the former’s childhood, perfectionism, and conditioning affection based on performance, the film formulates an ideological critique of Georgian education.
A minimalist documentary that combines autobiographical experience and a micro-sociological approach in order to question the Georgian education system and its mechanisms of indoctrination.Through stylized, observational tableaux of the strict and rigorous interaction between teachers and various groups of students, and with a deft sense of the absurd, Ever Since I Knew Myself interrogates the relationship between conformity and obedience on the one hand, and nationalism, patriarchal gender roles, dogmatism, and social control.