Salome Jashi | 2021 | Switzerland, Germany, Georgia | 90’ | digital

Taming the Garden opens with a strikingly surreal image: that of a giant tree, planted in a raft of soil, floating across the Black Sea. Jashi’s observational film charts one powerful man’s bizarre project to uproot and transplant hundreds of mature trees from the forests of rural Georgia to his own private garden. The film documents this brutal process of extraction as one-by-one the towering trees are pulled from the earth and transported to the palatial home of their new owner – a former Georgian Prime minister – as locals look on in horror and bemusement. Jashi captures the strange and terrible spectacle with a patient, forensic eye to construct a modern-day fable of wealth, power and privilege.

In partnership with the Embassy of Switzerland in the UK and the British Georgian Society

Followed by a conversation between Philippe Ciompi and Ed Lawrenson

Philippe Ciompi is a sound designer & dubbing mixer, picture editor, sound artist & composer. Philippe trained in Switzerland, Berlin & London in music studies, film sound design and mixing and is a visiting tutor for sound design at the Royal College of Art London and HEAD Geneva

Edward Lawrenson is a filmmaker and lecturer based in London. His films include A Safer Place (2020), Uppland (2018) and Abandoned Goods (2014), and they have played various festivals including Sundance, Locarno, Cinema du reel and Open City. edwardlawrenson.com