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Film und Medien Stiftung NRWNewsNewsSundance: Filmstiftung-backed documentary „Taming the Garden“ in Competition

Sundance: Filmstiftung-backed documentary „Taming the Garden“ in Competition

The international co-production „Taming the Garden“ by Salomé Jashi will be celebrating its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in the World Documentary Competition. Cologne’s Corso Film co-produced with Mira Film (Switzerland) and Sakdoc (Georgia) in association with the broadcasters Radio Bremen/ARTE, SRF and YLE. Other funders apart from the Filmstiftung included Eurimages, Federal Office of Culture CH, Expert Committee on Film and Media Art in Basle, Georgian National Film Center and the IDFA Bertha Fund.

The Sundance Film Festival is being held from 28 January to 3 February, 2021 online as well as in some physical events. More information at festival.sundance.org

About „Taming the Garden"
A powerful man buys some 100-year-old trees, as tall as 15-storey buildings, has them uprooted from along Georgia’s coastline and gathers them in his garden. In a complex and expensive procedure,  the trees are dug up from private gardens and public spaces, loaded on to two joined lorries and driven to the shore. The trees are then put on a ferry which sails across the Black Sea to the billionaire’s garden which is hidden behind a high-security fence. The billionaire in question is Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s former prime minister, who continues to control the country’s fortunes like an ephemeral figure. He is the subject of myths and legends. However, the trees themselves are the film’s central character. The majestic trees lead us to their owners, to the workers who dig them up, and to the billionaire. The film thus describes the social dynamics between rich and poor, the powerful and the weak, and between political despotism and social resistance.