World premiere

Life and Death of a Christmas Tree

Local title
Jõulupuu elu ja surm
Original title
Kalėdų eglutės gyvenimas ir mirtis
Director
Artūras Jevdokimovas
Country
Lithuania, Georgia, Denmark
Year
2023
Festival
Kinoff 2023
Programme
Main programme of Kinoff, Baltic Film Competition
Subject
environment, lifestyle, christmas

It doesn’t matter. If you fall from a tree – you will die anyway.

Jingle bells everywhere. Christmas is coming soon. Christmas trees are an inevitable adornment in every city and almost every household. We can hardly imagine Christmas without a Christmas tree. Lithuanian documentalist goes behind the scenes of the never-seen magic of Christmas to show how Christmas trees reach your home.

Mellow Georgians in the Racha region pick cones on 40-metre-tall treetops and risk their lives on every branch. Fir seeds from the Caucasus Mountains are transported to idyllic Denmark. Rich farmers like gourmand Marianne and “Jackie Brown” aficionado Lars calmly grow and distribute Christmas trees between fine dining. They mostly worry about protecting the trees from deer in the wintertime.

This film was tragically cursed and had to adapt to painful losses. One morning before a huge snowfall 15-year-old Mate found his father’s gun on the table and shot his best friend 13-year-old Luka for reasons unknown. The boys from Tlughi village were to be the protagonists and the director decided against replacing them. In August 2023, the Racha region suffered a deadly landslide and several people you see in the film are missing and one musician was confirmed dead among 11 casualties.

Edvinas Pukšta

Director
Artūras Jevdokimovas
Screenwriter
Arturas Jevdokimovas, Ramunė Rakauskaitė
Producer
Ringaile Leščinskienė
Co-producer
Puk Lodahl Eisenhardt
DoP
Goga Devdariani, Bernardas Andriušis
Editor
Bernardas Andriušis
Composer
Gintaras Sodeika
Production
AnaBen Films
Runtime
Language
Georgian, Danish, English, Lithuanian
Subtitles
English
Director
Artūras Jevdokimovas

Artūras Jevdokimovas (1966) studied TV Direction at Vilnius Conservatory, graduated in Film Direction at Tbilisi Theatre and Film Institute, and internship at Anthology Film Archives in New York. Previously he made the full-length documentary "Second Hand" in 2019.

Filmography:
Second Hand (2019, doc), Life and Death of a Christmas Tree (2023)

Screenings

9th Hall Apollo Kino Coca-Cola Plaza
Screening140902 / Jõulupuu elu ja surm
SubtitlesEnglish
Q&A guestsArturas Jevdokimovas (Director), Arturas Jevdokimovas (Director), Ringailė Leščinskienėn (Producer), Tekla Kobakhidze (Cast), Melano Darakhvelidze (Cast), Bernardas Andriušis (Director of photography / Editor)
Q&A duration
Screening duration
Hall Electric Cinema, Tartu
Screening164202 / Jõulupuu elu ja surm
SubtitlesEnglish
Screening duration
2nd Hall Apollo Kino Astri
Screening176202 / Jõulupuu elu ja surm
SubtitlesEnglish
Screening duration
Trailer
PÖFF TV - Meet the Filmmakers