top of page
2021_Nomination_European-Documentary_bw.jpg
sff21_Officialselection_Laurel.png
71_IFB_Forum_bw_72dpi.png

TAMING THE GARDEN

მოთვინიერება

91' 2021

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. 

- Sundance Film Festival

A film by Salomé Jashi

Cinematographers Goga Devdariani, Salomé Jashi

Editor Chris Wright

Sound recordists Nino Tevdorashvili,

Ana Davitashvili, Tengo Mandzulashvili

Sound designer Philippe Ciompi 

Music supervisor Celia Stroom

Researcher Tamara Mshvenieradze

Produced by Vadim Jendreyko, Erik Winker, Martin Roelly, Salomé Jashi

Mira Film, CORSO Film, Sakdoc Film

World Sales

Syndicado Film Sales

Aleksandar Govedarica

aleksandar@syndicado.com

https://syndicadofs.com/

+421949635890​

Support
Federal Office for Culture Switzerland,

Film und Medien Stiftung NRW,

Eurimages, Basel Film Fund, IDFA Bertha Fund,

Georgian National Film Center, Robert Bosch Stiftung

/ Literatisches Colloquim Berlin LCB,

Nipkow Program, DAAD Artists-in-Berlin,

HEAD post production award

 

In collaboration with broadcasters 

SRF / SRG SSR, Radio Bremen, Arte, Yle 

Distribution support

Swiss Films

 

 

TAMING THE GARDEN_still_05.jpg

Selected snippets from reviews

"Quietly magnificent and strange" - Jessica Kiang, Variety

"No film has lingered in my memory longer than Salomé Jashi’s deceptively simple spare look at both the physical process of moving this massive living thing and the conflict it engenders among a village’s locals. Not just because the images, starting with that opening shot of something that immediately feels both beautiful and wrong, are breathtaking. It lays out a complicated argument about ecology, economics, compromise, class, and humanity’s need to conquer and/or “tame” nature without resorting to an attack via polemics." - David Fear, Rolling Stone 

"A film where the offbeat subject matter and striking imagery make an entrancing combination" - Screen Daily

"With its static long takes and slow-moving points-of-focus, Taming the Garden is full of evocative imagery." – Sandi Rankaduwa, POV

“Taming the Garden” [has] stuck with me the most out of the docs I absorbed at Sundance... I’m already looking forward to falling under the strange spell of “Taming the Garden” once again; it’s a documentary worthy of IMAX…" - Kens5

MORE FROM PRESS REVIEWS

Selected Festivals​ and Awards

Sundance Film Festival, World Cinema Competition

Berlinale Forum

Cinema du Réel   Special Mention of the Young Jury Prize

DCEFF Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital, USA

FICUNAM , Mexico City  Award for Best Film in the International Competition

Docudays UA, Kiev   Main Award of DOCU/WORLD International Competition

Hong Kong International Film Festival

CPH:DOX, Copenhagen

Hot Docs, Toronto

New Directors/New Films, NYC

DOK.fest Münich

DocsBarcelona International Documentary Film Festival

Open City Documentary Festival, London

Magnificent 7, Serbia

Locarno Film Festival

São Paolo International Film Festival

Sydney Film Festival

IDFA - Best of Fests

Filmkunstfest MV, Schwerin, Germany ​  Best Documentary Award

CinéDOC, Tbilisi   Focus Caucasus Special Jury Mention

FICMEC, Canary Islands   Best Documentary Feature Award

Majordocs, Spain   Special Award of the Jury for Artistic Achievement

Underhilll Fest, Montenegro   Best International Documentary

CineFest Miskolc International Film Festival, Hungary   Winner of CineDocs Competition

IFF ELBE DOCK, Czech Republic   Special Mention

Golden Apricot IFF, Armenia   FIPRESCI Prize

Tacoma Film Festival, USA   Best Cinematography Documentary Feature

CINETEKTON! Festival Internacional de Cine y Arquitectura, Mexico

Qara Film Festival, Kazakhstan   Special Award of the Jury

IFF Message to Men, Russia   Award for Best Documentary

Press reviews and interviews

Variety

The Guardian by Peter Bradshow 

The Guardian by Claire Armitstead

The Guardian by Wendy Ide

Rolling Stone

POV

Screen Daily

Modern Times Review

Filmmaker Magazine interview with the filmmaker

Business Doc Europe, Geoffrey Macnab| Sundance

Business Doc Europe, Mark Adams | Berlinale

Women and Hollywood interview with the filmmaker 

Flickering Myth

NPR interview with Kenneth Turan 

CBS-Kens5

48Hills- Independendent San Francisco News + Culture

Films in Frame

CinExpress (Georgian)

Haus der Dokumentarfilm (German)

Docs in Orbit interview with the filmmaker 

Backseat Mafia

Calvet Journal interview with the filmmaker

Cineuropa

Cineuropa interview with the filmmaker

Criterion Cast

Criterion Cast (ND/NF)

Daily Beast

Film Festival Report

The Film Stage

Film Threat

Film Threat video review

Films in Frame

In Review Online

Los Angeles Times

Roger Ebert.com

Salt Lake Weekly

Sight and Sound

VOX

Le Courier

Criticum (Spanish)

Current Time (Russian)

Screen Slate interview with the filmmaker

Voice of America (Russian Service)

Girls at Film (Spanish)

Zeitgeschichte (German)

Eye for Film

SpoilerMovies (Portuguese)

BBC Radio World Service

Un-sci (Russian)

Rai Radio 1 (Italian)

Arte (French)

MDR Artour (German)

Das Erste ttt (German)

Facebook   www.facebook.com/tamingthegarden

Instagram   @tamingthegarden

bottom of page