EXCLUSIVE: The Christmas tree trade in New York City is big business. Every holiday season, hundreds of thousands of trees are sold on the sidewalks of New York; but competition is fierce.
This is the foundation for a new feature documentary from Call Me Miss Cleo director Celia Aniskovich. Aniskovich is directing and producing The Merchants of Joy (w/t), which comes from Boat Rocker, the company behind War Game, which just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and Hulu’s Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, Dial Tone Films and Epic Magazine.
The doc will follow five families, who are equal parts street corner capitalists and Christmas die-hards, as they source, bargain, and hustle to sell as many trees as they can in the city that never sleeps.
It started as an article in Epic magazine, which was published in December 2022. Todd Lubin and Jack Turner will executive produce for Boat Rocker’s Matador Content, alongside Ivan Schneeberg and David Fortier for Boat Rocker.
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