TAMING THE GARDEN
Salomé Jashi artfully captures the unusual disruption caused by the removal and transport of several massive trees from small Georgian villages.
Festival Section:
World Cinema Documentary Competition
Country:
Switzerland/Germany/Georgia
Sundance Program Description:
The opening shot of filmmaker Salomé Jashi’s striking environmental tale captures a tree as tall as a 15-story building floating on a barge across the vast Black Sea. Its destination lies within a garden countless miles away, privately owned by a wealthy and anonymous man whose passion resides in the removal, and subsequent replanting, of foreign trees into his own man-made Eden.
With astonishing cinematic style, TAMING THE GARDEN tracks the surreal uprooting of ancient trees from their Georgian locales. With each removal, tensions flare between workers and villagers. Some see financial incentives—new roads, handsome fees—while others angrily mourn the loss of what was assumed an immovable monolith of their town’s collective history and memory. With a steady and shrewdly observant eye, Jashi documents a single man’s power over Earth’s natural gardens: how majestic living artifacts of a country’s identity can so effortlessly become uprooted by individuals with no connection to the nature they now claim as their own.
Some Background:
Director/Producer:
Salomé Jashi
First Sundance credit. Co-founder, Sakdoc Film. This is Jashi’s second full-length feature doc, following The Dazzling Light of Sunset, which had an award-winning festival run that included Visions du Réel, Jihlava, ZagrebDox, Sarajevo, and Art of the Real, among many others.
Producers:
Vadim Jendreyko
First Sundance credit. Founder, Mira Film. Jendreyko has previously produced docs that have screened at Locarno, Karlovy Vary, Tribeca, CPH:DOX, DOC NYC, Sheffield, Sarajevo, and Visions du Réel, among other notable events.
Erik Winker
Past Sundance docs:
ACASA, MY HOME (2020)
A WOMAN CAPTURED (2018)
Co-founder, Corso Film. Winker’s past projects have screened at Berlin, Locarno, IDFA, DOC NYC, Hot Docs, SXSW, CPH:DOX, and AFI Fest, among other notable events.
Martin Roelly
Past Sundance docs:
ACASA, MY HOME
A WOMAN CAPTURED
Co-founder, Corso Film.
Associate Producers:
Hercli Bundi
First Sundance credit. Founder, Mira Film.
Susanna Guggenberger
First Sundance credit. Producer, Mira Film. Beyond producing, Guggenberger has an extensive background working with sales companies, festivals, and other film industry events.
Anna Dziapshipa
First Sundance credit. Co-founder/director, Sakdoc Film. Dziapshipa is also an experimental filmmaker and visual artist.
More Info:
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