Ilze Akmentiņa

My Family Tree

A unique, engaging film that combines documentary footage with narrative cinema to tell the story of four generations of a Latvian family. Sixteen year-old student Jānis has been given an interesting homework assignment – to draw his family tree and explain it. The story of his family begins with his great-great-grandfather who burned down the manors of German landowners during the 1905 revolution. My Family Tree takes us on a journey to various countries and political regimes, showing Jānis’ ancestors to be people of diverse fates and life stories. A rich Latvian trader, a red rifleman loyal to Lenin, a carpenter with the KGB and war refugees in Sweden are only a few branches on his family tree, and the boy has heard something unusual and unforgettable about each and every one of these people.