My Family Tree - English Teaser Trailer

My Family Tree is a unique and engaging film which combines documentary footage with narrative cinema to tell a story about four generations of a Latvian family. Sixteen year old student Jānis has been given an interesting home work assignment -- to draw his family tree and tell about 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's ancestors to be people with diverse fates and life stories. A rich Latvian trader, a red rifleman loyal to Lenin, a carpenter at the KGB and war refugees in Sweden are only a few branches on his family tree, and the boy has heard something unusal and unforgettable about each and every one of these people.

My Family Tree is not a historical film in the most direct sense of the word, because it's story is that of a teenager who recalls what his grandparents have told him about the past. Thus historical events and situations have a personal and at times even a bit absurd viewpoint. Although the family tree depicted in the film is fictional, it encourages young people to take interest in the past, not only by learning history, but by finding out about the roots of their own families.