The Christmas tree, a well-familiar festive plant, travels through countries and cultures, while the joyful hustle and bustle hides a billion-dollar business and the characters’ daily struggle for survival.

Eighty percent of European Christmas trees are grown in Denmark from seeds collected in a small Georgian region. We experience the joys and sorrows of Danish and Georgian communities and witness differences and similarities between cultures. The seeds are harvested every autumn in Georgia, and then sold to the Danish, who grow the seedlings for seven years to sell them across Europe. The Georgian firs grow as tall as 60 meters, and in order to reach the best cones, the pickers have to climb to the very top. Sometimes they lose their balance and fall.

“Deep diving into the lives of the cone pickers and tree growers, we would like to reveal the feelings uniting people despite the historical, social, cultural or ethnic differences. The film will make the audience both laugh and cry. We seek full-scale emotions for the audience, from nostalgic childhood memories to compassion for the poor and exploited cone pickers. This social drama will reveal the unknown, ‘dark’ side of the Christmas tree, which intertwines risk, death and the quest for a better life”, Arturas Jevdokimovas told FNE.

The film is produced by Ringailė Leščinskienė and Bernardas Andriušis through AnaBen Films (Lithuania) and coproduced by Gotfat Productions (Denmark) and Funky Production House (Georgia).

The total budget is approximately 274,000 EUR.

The project was supported by the Lithuanian Film Centre (with 75,000 EUR in 2022 and 30,000 EUR in 2023), the Lithuanian Film Tax Incentive (32,229 EUR), AnaBen Films own investment (14,000 EUR) and the West Danish Film Fund (50,500 EUR).

In 2023 further financing is expected from the Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT) and Current Time TV.

The filming of the project took place in Georgia in 2020, 2022 and 2023, and in Denmark and Lithuania in 2022 and 2023.

Production Information:

Producer: AnaBen Films (Lithuania)
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Coproducers:
Gotfat Productions (Denmark)
Funky Production House (Georgia)
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Credits:
Director: Arturas Jevdokimovas
Scriptwriters: Arturas Jevdokimovas, Ramunė Rakauskaitė
DOPs: Goga Devdariani, Bernardas Andriušis
Editor: Bernardas Andriušis
Composer: Gintaras Sodeika