I PLANT MY HAND IN THE GARDEN

A word from the programmation committee : 

Hoda, an Iranian refugee who has been living in Berlin for many years, is pregnant and engaged to Boris, who is from Serbia. As their marriage approaches, their respective families are forced to live together for a few weeks, sweeping the couple into a flood of overwhelming obligations and duties; suddenly, they are called on to navigate the various legacies, identities, and models, no longer sure whether they want to perpetuate them or break away from them. I Plant My Hand In the Garden is again about roots, in every sense of the word – beginning with the filmmakers’ decisions to play themselves, inevitably inviting us to consider the work’s autobiographical dimension. Yet, if we initially think we are watching a straightforward – and already brilliantly directed – family chronicle, marked by the political and emotional tensions of a marriage that spans two, and even three, countries, the film’s achievement lies precisely in its perpetual evasion of its topic. From one room to the next, from a sequence to another, past and futures seep into the present, and the characters never quite coincide with who they were just minutes before. Almost by magic, everything moves, everything transforms: the film embraces life’s contradictory movements.

Rose Hirgorom

Traduction : Aurore Kahan