Taming the Garden

A powerful man, who is also the former prime minister of Georgia, has developed an exquisite hobby. He collects century old trees along Georgia’s coastline. He commissions his men to uproot them and bring them to his private garden. Some of these trees are as tall as 15-floor-buildings. And in order to transplant a tree of such dimensions some other trees are chopped down, electric cables are shifted and new roads are paved through mandarin plantations.

The film moves the concept of uprooting from its metaphorical meaning into an oppressive, tangible and yet surreal reality.

“No film has lingered in my memory longer than Salomé Jashi’s deceptively simple spare [Taming the Garden]... ” – Rolling Stone

“Transporting these trees is a Fitzcarraldo-type operation: a folie de grandeur of staggering proportions. ” – The Guardian

“Though this peculiar saga actually happened, Jashi’s film plays more like myth than journalism, as though she is documenting the folklore of the future as it is happening.” – Variety

Salomé Jashi was born in Tbilisi, Georgia in 1981. She first studied journalism and worked as a reporter for several years. In 2005 she was awarded a British Council scholarship to study documentary filmmaking at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Salomé’s The Dazzling Light of Sunset (2016) was awarded the Main Prize at Visions du Réel’s Regard Neuf Competition as well as at ZagrebDox, Jihlava IDFF, Valdivia IDFF, and several other festivals. Her earlier work, Bakhmaro (2011), made in co-production with ma.ja.de. filmproduktion and MDR/Arte, received an Honorary Mention for a Young Documentary Talent at DOK Leipzig, was awarded as the Best Central and Eastern European Documentary at Jihlava IDFF, and was nominated for the Asia Pacific Screen Awards and Silver Eye Awards.

Salomé is the founder of two production companies: Sakdoc Filmand Microcosmos, both producing documentaries and fiction of high artistic quality. She was a fellow of Nipkow Scholarship in 2017 and DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program in 2020.