Arsenchik's First Birthday

An American filmmaker comes to a Romanian village to make a documentary about a forgotten Cold War story.

Disguising his smuggling operation as humanitarian aid, Fane ventures into Ukraine to retrieve contraband cigarettes. His mission is complicated when a young refugee, Oleh, sneaks into his van with no way for them to understand each other.

Haunted by the death of one of his infant twins, a father sets out to build a replica of the legendary Ferrari Enzo, a car bearing the same name as his deceased child. With every cut, bolt and turn of his wrench, the man’s journey blurs the lines between grief and obsession.

The film confronts the reality of cultural displacement and the search for identity, framed by my family’s own longing for the Romanian culture, absent in American surroundings. There Are No Fir Trees Here is a story about the spaces we inhabit and the yearning for a place that feels like home.