A Month of Single Frames was honored to receive the Grand Prize of the City of Oberhausen at Oberhausen’s 66th Annual Film Festival
Statement from Oberhausen: In the age of necessary social distancing, we would like to highlight a remarkable film which fulfills the noblest vocation of art, fostering an emotional connection between people from different times and geographical locations. For the ability to find poetry and complexity in simple things, for its profound love for life and people, and for attention to detail in working with delicate matters, we decided to award the Grand Prize of the City of Oberhausen to A Month of Single Frames by Lynne Sachs.
Q&A about “A Month of Single Frames” and award acceptance
Lynne Sachs’ “Film About a Father Who” will enjoy its international premier in the program –
INTO THE WORLD This strand is about all of us – the distant, the close, the intimate, the political – our worlds and their infinite appearances, challenges and dangers. Essential films with essential themes that take varied approaches to exploring our past, present and collective future. In journeying around the Earth, let us encounter people, their fights, their fears, their stories. From China to the USA, from Mexico to Argentina and Chile, from Canada, to the West Indies and France, from England to Scotland and Ireland, from Lebanon to Israel, from Italy to Poland, from Gambia to Iran, from the Philippines to South Africa, these films search, investigate, ask questions, show and testify contemporary local and global struggles, remembering and learning from past battles in order to be ready for new fights.
Please join us for STILL/MOVING, a two-part, immersive (and virtual, of course!) poetry and documentary workshop, hosted by renowned artists and longtime collaborators, Lynne Sachs and Paolo Javier!
In this workshop, participants will explore and expand intersections between still/moving images and written/spoken words. Lynne and Paolo will share insights and experiences they have in bridging poetry and cinema in their own work and show examples from their personal collaborations, including Starfish Aorta Colossus (2015, 5 min.). In this film, a stanza from Paolo’s poem of the same name (out of his book Court of the Dragon from the same year) activates nearly 25 years worth of rediscovered 8mm film from Lynne’s personal archives. The film centers both the resonances and ruptures between Paolo’s haunting words and Lynne’s cinematic journeys.
On Day 1, participants will gain insights into this process with examples of filmmakers and poets whose practices explore and encompass both images and texts. Discussion will include (but certainly not be limited to!): the activation of archival images, visualization of poetic texts, overlaying text on the moving image, live poetry and expanded cinema performance (facilitators will touch on the traditional Japanese benshi performers who live-narrated silent films and Walter Lew’s art of movietelling), poetic approaches to observational documentary, the “cine-essay,” and more.
On Day 2, participants will have the opportunity to work individually or in pairs to produce a short video piece that combines text with footage of their current environment. The session will culminate with a live Zoom screening/performance of work produced in the workshop, and participants will have the option to later showcase work at the Maysles Documentary Center Virtual Cinema.
Tuesday, May 26, between the two workshop sessions, participants will write a short poem and shoot a 60 to 90 second film on their own. We encourage you to send us your video file and your poem by 5 pm on this day. Participants will regroup on Wednesday, May 27th to workshop and share their creations.
So please join us in this multimedia investigation of the sounds, texts, media images, home movies, and sensory experiences that make up this moment of both heightened stillness and rapid motion, of test and of triumph.
Day 1: Monday, May 25th 4:00–7:00PM Day 2: Wednesday, May 27th 4:00–7:00PM
Lynne Sachs is a filmmaker and poet whose moving image work ranges from short experimental films, to essay films to hybrid live performances. Her approach to her art includes a very genuine, feminist voice. Lynne’s work can best be epitomized by her interests in intimacy, collaboration and space. Her films often include her poetry, making the audience aware of her unique, and probing curiosity about others. Intimacy is also expressed by the way she uses a camera. Textures, objects, places, reflections, faces, hands, all come so close to us in her films. Her work looks for truths in forgotten nooks and crannies, allowing her films to ‘talk nearby instead of talk about’ as feminist theorist Trinh T. Minh Ha would say. Lynne has made 35 films which have screened at the New York Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney. Lynne received a 2014 Guggenheim Fellowship in the Creative Arts. Tender Buttons Press published her first book YEAR BY YEAR POEMS in 2019. FILM ABOUT A FATHER WHO (2020) is her newest film which hads its world premiere as the opening night movie at Slamdance Film Festival followed by a New York City premiere at the Museum of Modern Art. Lynne lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Paolo Javier was born in the Philippines and grew up in Las Piñas, Metro Manila; Katonah, New York; Cairo, Egypt; and Vancouver, British Columbia. He earned his BFA from the University of British Columbia, working as a freelance journalist and running an experimental theater company before returning to New York City, where he still lives with his family. He earned an MFA and MAT from Bard College. Javier’s collections of poetry include The Feeling Is Actual (2011); 60 lv bo(e)mbs (2005); the time at the end of this writing (2004), recipient of a Small Press Traffic Book of the Year Award; and Court of the Dragon (2015), which Publisher’s Weekly called “a linguistic time machine.” He is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Queens Council on the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. For more than ten years, he edited and published the experimental art and poetry journal 2nd Avenue Poetry. Paolo is the Program Director of Poets House and, from 2010 to 2014, was poet laureate of Queens, New York.
Awards of the International Competition Prizes awarded by the International Jury
Members of the International Jury: Frank Beauvais (France), Lerato Bereng (South Africa), Dmitry Frolov (Russia), Michał Matuszewski (Poland), Brittany Shaw (USA)
Grand Prize of the City of Oberhausen
A Month of Single Frames Lynne Sachs USA 2019, 14 min. 12 sec., colour
Statement: In the age of necessary social distancing, we would like to highlight a remarkable film which fulfills the noblest vocation of art, fostering an emotional connection between people from different times and geographical locations. For the ability to find poetry and complexity in simple things, for its profound love for life and people, and for attention to detail in working with delicate matters, we decided to award the Grand Prize of the City of Oberhausen to A Month of Single Frames by Lynne Sachs.
Girl is Presence 4 min. color sound 2020 a film by Lynne Sachs and Anne Lesley Selcer
For GIRL IS PRESENCE, Lynne Sachs has made images as a form of reading and listening in response to disquieting words from Anne Lesley Selcer’s poem “Sun Cycle”. A girl arranges and rearranges objects, sensorily reflecting the tense and disharmonious list of words voiced by Selcer in the film. As the language builds in tension, the scene becomes occult, ritualistic, and alchemical. Against the uncertain and anxious pandemic atmosphere, performer Noa Street-Sachs, Lynne’s daughter, creates and unmakes systems with the collection of small, mysterious things. Selcer’s poem emerges from Sun Cycle, the eponymous book which deals with image, gender and power. This poem reworks a George Bataille essay to undo and recast its rhythms.
Anne Lesley Selcer works in the expanded field of language. They write on, with, around and underneath art. This has created a book of essays called Blank Sign Book, a book of poems called Sun Cycle, as well as a multitude of multiform publications, performances and moving pictures scattered through galleries, artspaces, magazines and the internet, most recently, The Mouth is Still a Wild Door and The Sadness of the Supermarket: A Lament for Certain Girls. The short film Girl is Presence made in collaboration with Lynne Sachs, is based on Selcer’s poem “Sun Cycle.”
Here is an interview with Anne on her process of writing in Sun Cycle. Go to 20:17-23:58 for a direct correlation to “Girl is Presence”.
Noa Street-Sachs (performer) works as an investigator on police misconduct cases at a government agency in New York City. She is also a photographer and a native of Brooklyn.
Rebecca Shapass (editor) is a filmmaker, multidisciplinary artist, and community organizer living in New York City. Commissioned by Small Press Traffic for Bay Area Shorts, spring 2020
From 1984 to 2019, filmmaker Lynne Sachs shot film, videotape and digital images with her father, Ira Sachs, a bohemian businessman from Park City. This film is her attempt to understand the web that connects a child to her parent and a sister to eight siblings, some of whom she has known all of her life, others she only recently discovered. With a nod to the Cubist renderings of a face, her film offers sometimes contradictory views of one seemingly unknowable man who is always there, public, in the center of the frame, yet somehow ensconced in secrets.
“This divine masterwork of vulnerability weaves past and present together with ease, daring the audience to choose love over hate, forgiveness over resentment. Sachs lovingly untangles the messy hair of her elusive father, just as she separates and tends to each strand of his life. A remarkable character study made by a filmmaker at the top of her game– an absolute must see in Park City.”
The world’s oldest short film competition is a forum for experiments, unusual content and formats, and the place for cinematic discoveries. Every year, filmmakers from all over the world present themselves here.
The International Competition selection includes artistic contributions from all genres, explores the freedom of the short form, surprises and enriches the audience. The industry audience research new films here and a premiere screened in this competition is often a springboard for selection by other festivals – not least for the Oscar (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences).
The competition presents a selection of the most interesting works of the year and invites filmmakers from all over the world to present their work in person. In the International Competition, only German festival premieres are shown, including numerous world premieres. There is also a focus on works from countries outside the strong production infrastructures, especially from Eastern and South Eastern Europe and the African states.
The films selected by an independent committee from well over 6,000 submissions compete for prize money of 25,500 €. Prizes are awarded by four juries: the International Jury, the Jury of the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Ecumenical Jury and the FIPRESCI Jury.
Jury of the International Competition 2020
Frank Beauvais, filmmaker, France Lerato Bereng, curator, South Africa Dmitry Frolov, curator, Russia Michał Matuszewski, curator, Poland Brittany Shaw, curator, USA
Among the international competition films were works by
Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Santiago Álvarez, Lindsay Anderson, Roy Andersson, Kenneth Anger, Andrea Arnold, Yael Bartana, Neil Beloufa, Jürgen Böttcher, Walerian Borowczyk, Stan Brakhage, Vera Chytilová, Jem Cohen, Terence Davies, Khavn De La Cruz, Valie Export, Milos Forman, Robert Frank, Karpo Godina, James Herbert, Takashi Ito, Joris Ivens, Ken Jacobs, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Isaac Julien, Miranda July, William Kentridge, Jan Lenica, George Lucas, Dusan Makavejev, Jonas Mekas, Mike Mills, Kornel Mundruczo, Robert Nelson, Yoko Ono, Adina Pintilie, Roman Polanski, Laure Prouvost, Alain Resnais, Pipilotti Rist, Martin Scorsese, Cate Shortland, John Smith, Michael Snow, Alexander Sokurov, Jan Svankmajer, Eva Stefani, István Szabó, Matsumoto Toshio, François Truffaut, Gus Van Sant, Agnès Varda, Bill Viola, Apitchatpong Weerasethakul, Jia Zhang-Ke, Zelimir Zilinik
Full 2020 Program
Australia Cuckoo Roller, Paddy Hay, 2019, 15’10”, International Competition The Echo, Michael Gupta, 2020, 02’30”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
Austria Heavy Metal Detox, Josef Dabernig, 2019, 12’00”, International Competition Pomp, Katrina Daschner, 2020, 07’43”, International Competition
Austria/Germany The Institute, Alexander Glandien, 2020, 13’00”, German Competition This Makes Me Want to Predict the Past, Cana Bilir-Meier, 2019, 16‘05‘‘, German Competition
Belgium Le Poisson fidèle, Atelier Collectif, 2019, 07’40”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
Belgium/Georgia Da-Dzma, Jaro Minne, 2019, 15’36”, International Competition
Brazil Baile, Cíntia Domit Bittar, 2019, 18’00”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition O Jardim Fantástico, Fábio Baldo/Tico Dias, 2020, 20’30”, International Competition
Canada Le mangeur d’orgues, Diane Obomsawin, 2019, 01’19”, International Competition Oursons, Nicolas Renaud, 2019, 09’10”, International Competition
Canada/Portugal The Initiation Well, Chris Kennedy, 2020, 03’30”, International Competition
Chile Extrañas Criaturas, Cristina Sitja/Cristobal Leon, 2019, 15’00”, International Competition/Children’s and Youth Film Competition
China I Am the People_I, Li Xiaofei, 2019, 25’00”, International Competition Phoenix, Su Zhong, 2020, 07’27”, International Competition
Colombia PLATA O PLOMO, Nadia Granados, 2019, 04’19”, International Competition Ramón, Natalia Bernal Castillo, 2020, 07’10”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
Croatia Porvenir, Renata Poljak, 2020, 12’15”, International Competition Strujanja, Katerina Duda, 2019, 16’10”, International Competition
Cuba Las Muertes de Arístides, Lázaro Lemus, 2019, 16’10”, International Competition
Czech Republic Apparatus as a Goal of History, Zbyněk Baladrán, 2019, 13’52”, International Competition Milenina píseň, Anna Remešová/Marie Lukacova, 2019, 09’01”, International Competition
Finland Patentti Nr. 314805, Mika Taanila, 2020, 02’16”, International Competition Talvinen järvi, Petteri Saario, 2019, 15’00”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
Finland/Hungary Crossing Paths, Éva Freund, 2019, 09’55”, International Competition
France Cœur Fondant, Benoît Chieux, 2019, 11’20”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition Esperança, Cécile Rousset/Jeanne Paturle/Benjamin Serero, 2019, 05’25”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition Never look at the Sun, Baloji, 2019, 05’16”, International Competition Mat et les gravitantes, Pauline Penichout, 2019, 26’00”, International Competition Moutons, loup et tasse de thé…, Marion Lacourt, 2019, 12’10”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition Sous la canopée, Bastien Dupriez, 2019, 06’38”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition Têtard, Jean-Claude Rozec, 2019, 13’40”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition Un lynx dans la ville, Nina Bisiarina, 2019, 06’48”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
France/Argentinia Aquí y allá, Melisa Liebenthal, 2019, 21’41”, International Competition
France/China Nan Fang Shao Nv (She Runs), Qiu Yang, 2019, 19’32”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
France/Germany Sans plomb, Louise Groult, 2019, 08‘00‘‘, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
France/Morocco Sukar, Ilias El Faris, 2019, 09’00”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
France/South Africa/Germany Shepherds, Teboho Edkins, 2020, 27’00”, German Competition/International Competition
France/South Korea Boriya, Min Sung Ah, 2019, 17’13”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
Georgia/Germany Scenes from Trial and Error, Tekla Aslanishvili, 2020, 32’00”, German Competition
Germany Abgelaufen, Roman Schaible, 2019, 04’39”, MuVi Award AQUA IMPROMPTU, Ebba Jahn, 2019, 13’12”, German Competition attractions, Patrick Wallochny, 2019, 04’16”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition Beasts Of No Nation, Krzysztof Honowski, 2019, 09’28”, German Competition Becky’s Weightloss Palace, Bela Brillowska, 2020, 08’00”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition Berzah, Deren Ercenk, 2020, 26’22”, NRW Competition Causality and Meaning, Martin Brand, 2020, 09’17”, German Competition Chico Crew I, Christine Gensheimer, 2020, 2’17”, MuVi Award Das war unsere BRD, Ariane Andereggen/Ted Gaier, 2019, 10’01”, MuVi Award Der natürliche Tod der Maus, Katharina Huber, 2020, 21’34”, German Competition Die sehen ja nur, die wissen ja nichts, Silke Schönfeld, 2020, 26’58”, NRW Competition Dunkelfeld, Marian Mayland/Patrick Lohse/Ole-Kristian Heyer, 2020, 17’35”,German Competition Eurydike, Zaza Rusadze/Andreas Reihse, 2020, 03’45”, MuVi Award Freeze Frame, Soetkin Verstege, 2019, 05’00”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition Ganze Tage zusammen, Luise Donschen, 2019, 23’00”, German Competition If there is love, you will take it, Daniel Hopp, 2020, 10’41”, German Competition Im toten Park, Moritz Liewerscheidt, 2019, 08’00”, NRW Competition Introspektion, Hamid Kargar, 2019, 04’14”, MuVi Award Jona, Jonathan Schaller, 2019, 16’12”, NRW Competition Kunst, Dietrich Brüggemann, 2019, 03’57”, MuVi Award L’Artificio, Francesca Bertin, 2020, 23’00”, German Competition Labor of Love, Sylvia Schedelbauer, 2020, 11’30”, German Competition Mad Mieter, M + M (Weis/De Mattia), 2019, 06’09”, German Competition Nackenwirbel, DIE GLITZIES/Nina Werner/Simon Quack/André Siegers/Bernd Schoch, 2020, 05’53”, MuVi Award Passage, Ann Oren, 2020, 12’48”, German Competition Phoenix, Florian Felix Koch, 2020, 13’32”, NRW Competition Play Me That Silicon Waltz Again, Rainer Knepperges, 2019, 03’41”, NRW Competition schichteln, Verena Wagner, 2019, 21’28”, German Competition Shadowbanned, Jan Lankisch, 2020, 03’28”, MuVi Award Semiotics of the City, Daniel Burkhardt, 2020, 04’00”, NRW Competition SUGAR, Bjørn Melhus, 2019, 20’30”, German Competition there may be uncertainty, Paul Reinholz, 2020, 28’58”, NRW Competition Vicious, Lucie Friederike Mueller, 2019, 02’35”, MuVi Award VIVE LA LIBERTÉ, Dieter Reifarth/Vollrad Kutscher, 2019, 05’32”, German Competition Wer sagt denn das?, Timo Schierhorn/UWE, 2019, 03’00”, MuVi Award
Germany/India them people, Nausheen Javed, 2020, 05’37”, NRW Competition
Germany/Jordan The Ghosts We Left at Home, Faris Alrjoob, 2020, 21’00”, German Competition
Germany/Latvia Klusā daba, Anna Ansone, 2020, 22’00”, NRW Competition
Germany/Turkey Letters from Silivri, Adrian Figueroa, 2019, 15’50”, German Competition Onun Haricinde, İyiyim, Eren Aksu, 2020, 14’00”, German Competition
Germany/Ukraine Nolove, Sergii Kushnir, 2020, 03’27”, MuVi Award
Germany/USA Sketch Artist, Loretta Fahrenholz, 2019, 03’44”, MuVi Award
Ghana King of Sanwi, Akosua Adoma Owusu, 2020, 07’18”, International Competition *
Greece BELLA, Thelyia Petraki, 2020, 24’30”, International Competition
Hungary/Armenia What We Still Can Do, Nora Ananyan, 2019, 14’34”, International Competition
India Bittersweet, Sohrab Hura, 2019, 13’48”, International Competition
Ireland Christy, Brendan Canty, 2019, 14’17”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition Receiver, Jenny Brady, 2019, 14’36”, International Competition
Japan Chinbin Western, Kazoku no Hyosho (Chinbin Western, Representation of the family), Chikako Yamashiro, 2019, 32’00”, International Competition yumemi banani utsutsu (Dreaming Away), Yuta Masuda, 2019, 09’38”, International Competition
Kyrgyzstan Abzel, Aizhamal Akchalova, 2019, 11’47”, International Competition Ayana, Aidana Topchubaeva, 2019, 20’44”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
Latvia MAN, Yulia Timoshkina, 2020, 11’45”, International Competition
Malaysia Camera Trap, Chris Chan Fui Chong, 2019, 09’40”, International Competition
Mexico ( ( ( ( ( /*\ ) ) ) ) ) (ecos del volcán), Charles Fairbanks/Saul Kak, 2019, 18’15”, International Competition Dresden Codex, Colectivo los ingrávidos, 2019, 04’59”, International Competition
Nepal Junu Ko Jutta, Kedar Shrestha, 2019, 13’02”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
Netherlands Elf, Luca Meisters, 2019, 12’52”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition En route, Marit Weerheijm, 2019, 10’09”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition L’eau Faux, Serge Onnen/Sverre Fredriksen, 2020, 15’30”, International Competition Zachte Krachten, Julia Kaiser, 2019, 20’56”, International Competition
Norway Cuojnasat, Ann Holmgren, 2019, 02’34”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
Philippines Escape Velocity, Jon Lazam, 2019, 02’00”’, International Competition We still have to close our eyes, John Torres, 2019, 13’00”, International Competition
Poland Śnię o Rosji, Evgeniia Klemba, 2020, 08’50”, International Competition
Portugal Six Portraits of Pain, Teresa Villaverde, 2019, 25’02”, International Competition
Singapore The Smell of Coffee, Nishok Nishok , 2019, 11’38”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
South Korea Front Door, Ye-jin Lee, 2019, 03’12”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
Spain Grietas, Alberto Gross, 2019, 12’23”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition Profecía, Julieta Juncadella, 2020, 13’11”, International Competition
Sweden En film, Mårten Nilsson, 2019, 04’14”, International Competition Jamila, Sophie Vukovic, 2019, 13’02”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
Switzerland Alma Nel Branco, Agnese Làposi, 2019, 24’50”, International Competition Der kleine Vogel und die Bienen, Lena von Döhren, 2020, 04’30”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition Gira Ancora, Elena Petitpierre, 2019, 22’09”, International Competition Warum Schnecken keine Beine haben, Aline Höchli, 2019, 10’44”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
Switzerland/UK Getting Started, William Crook, 2019, 02’01”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
Taiwan Wan Ru Yan Huo (Like Fireworks), Ting-wei Chang,, 2019, 15’00”, Kinder- und Jugendfilmwettbewerb
Thailand I’m Not Your F***ing Stereotype, Hesome Chemamah, 2019, 28’59”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
Turkey Ahtapot, Engin Erden, 2019, 12’26”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition MAMAVILLE, Irmak Karasu, 2019, 20’46”, International Competition
UK A Thin Place, Fergus Carmichael, 2019, 12’16”, International Competition Amaryllis – a Study, Jayne Parker, 2020, 07’00”, International Competition Dungarees, Abel Rubinstein, 2019, 05’30”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition Hacer Una Diagonal Con La Musica, Aura Satz, 2019, 10’20”, International Competition Hard, Cracked the Wind, Mark Jenkin, 2019, 17’18”, International Competition Our Largest, Marcus Forde, 2019, 05’32”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition Turning, Linnéa Haviland, 2019, 01’50”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition
UK/Germany Junkerhaus, Karen Russo, 2019, 07’30”, International Competition
USA A Song Often Played on the Radio, Raven Chacon/Cristobal Martinez, 2019, 23’25”, International Competition A Month of Single Frames, Lynne Sachs, 2019, 14’12”, International Competition Furthest From, Kyung Sok Kim, 2019, 18’58”, Children’s and Youth Film Competition Hampton, Kevin Jerome Everson/Claudrena N. Harold, 2019, 06’00”, International Competition Isn’t it a Pity, Heather Trawick, 2019, 07’50”, International Competition
South Korea/USA Latency/ Contemplation 6, Seoungho Cho, 2020, 06’51”, International Competition
Vietnam/Taiwan không đề #2 (untitled #2), Nguyen Anh Tu Pham, 2019, 03’02”, International Competition
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Between 1984 and 2019, filmmaker Lynne Sachs shot a film with her father, a bohemian businessman who sometimes chose to reveal less than was really there.
Interview with Director Lynne Sachs
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
Since I began making films, I’ve been collecting material for a film about my father. It took me three decades to complete this film. Life goes on, and each day brings surprises, joys and disappointments. In 2020, I premiered Film About a Father Who at Slamdance and then at Documentary Fortnight at the Museum of Modern Art. This is the third film in my trilogy (including States of UnBelonging, 2005, and The Last Happy Day, 2009) of essay films that explore the degree by which one human being can know another. This film is a partial portrait of my father Ira Sachs, a bohemian businessman living in the mountains of Utah. My father has always chosen the alternative path in life, a path that has brought unpredictable adventures, nine children with six different women, brief marijuana-related brushes with the police and a life-long interest in doing some good in the world. It is also a film about the complex dynamics that conspire to create a family. There is nothing nuclear about all of us, we are a solar system comprised of nine planets revolving around a single sun, a sun that nourishes, a sun that burns, a sun that each of us knows is good and bad for us. We accept and celebrate, somehow, the consequences.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
Over a period of 35 years between 1984 and 2019, I shot 8 and 16mm film, videotape and digital images of my father. Film About a Father Who is my attempt to understand the web that connects a child to her parent and a sister to her siblings. With a nod to the Cubist renderings of a face, this exploration of my father offers simultaneous, sometimes contradictory, views of one seemingly unknowable man who is publicly the uninhibited center of the frame yet privately ensconced in secrets. In the process, I allow myself and my audience inside to see beyond the surface of the skin, the projected reality. As the startling facts mount, I, as a daughter, discover more about my father than I had ever hoped to reveal. Over the last few months since the film’s Slamdance Premiere, I have had some of the deepest most intense interactions of my career as a filmmaker with people in my audiences. These conversations have allowed me to see the ways in which this film stirs viewers into thinking about the imprint their own fathers and mothers have had on who they are in the world today.
Lynne Sachs with Ira Sachs Sr
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
Weighing the importance of the personal in relationship to the universal was an absolutely critical aspect of the editing process for this film. I had to search for a universality from my particular experience while weeding through 35 years of film, video and digital material. This was a critical journey to finding a way to tell this story. When I finally brought artist and editor Rebecca Shapass into my process, I found a way to convey the story of my family to a new person who knew nothing about us, had no expectations, prejudices or affinities. Through her sensitive, compassionate listening ear, I was able to carve out the kind of distance that allowed me to see that this was not really a character-driven portrait of one man but rather an investigation into the way that “family” is really just a term describing the intricate, sometimes heart-breaking series of relationships that hold a group of people together in a cosmos.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
In 2017, I gathered all nine of my siblings together for the first time. We shot for four hours, and the experience was, for the most part, cathartic. But, as I looked through the footage I noticed that everyone was extremely aware of how I, in particular, responded to their words. It took me a year to accept that this singular, more contrived, scene was significant in terms of who was there in the same room but did not take the film to the place I needed it to go. Throughout 2018, I either flew my siblings to Brooklyn or went to meet them where they live. In almost every case, I convinced my sisters and brothers to go into a completely darkened space with me. We often sat in closets. It was weird and very intimate. As I recorded their voices, resonating through my headphones, I knew I was listening to them in a deeper way than I had ever done before. There in the dark, they each accessed something new about our father that they had never articulated before.
One of the biggest and most intimidating aspects of making this film was finding a way to translate my own interior thoughts – be they loving, rage-filled, compassionate or simply contradictory – about our father into a convincing, not too self-conscious voiceover narration. From the very beginning, I knew that Film About a Father Who would be an essay film that would include my own writing. One of the reasons the film took so long to make was that every time I sat down to put a pen to paper, I became intimidated by the process. During an artist residency at Yaddo, I plopped myself on my bed with a bunch of pillows, and began to speak into a microphone. Over a period of 10 days, I recorded hours of material – oral histories, in a sense – that were generated by me as daughter, artist and director. To my surprise, I was actually able to apply the newly discovered “in the dark” approach to recording with my siblings to the way that I listened to my own thoughts and this more spontaneous vocalized writing became the framework for the whole movie.
Dir Lynne Sachs in Film About A Father Who
What type of feedback have you received so far?
This film has probably generated some of the most interesting, deeply felt responses I have ever received for my work. Here are a few, I would like to share:
“The film is bookended with footage of Lynne Sachs attempting to cut her aging father’s sandy hair, which — complemented by his signature walrus mustache — is as long and hippie-ish as it was during the man’s still locally infamous party-hearty heyday, when Ira Sachs Sr. restored, renovated and lived in the historic Adams Avenue property that is now home to the Mollie Fontaine Lounge. ‘There’s just one part that’s very tangly,’ Lynne comments, as the simple grooming activity becomes a metaphor for the daughter’s attempt to negotiate the thicket of her father’s romantic entanglements, the branches of her extended family tree and the thorny concepts of personal and social responsibility.” – John Beiffus, Memphis Commercial Appeal
“A Film About a Father Who is also remarkable for its terrific synthesizing of the wealth of archival material. Given the breadth of the narrative span, it’s extraordinary that the director fits the story into a compact length of just 73 minutes, yet, masterfully, she does. Given her extremely personal connection to the story, it’s astonishing how deeply she investigates the good and the bad in a person she clearly loves. This gripping documentary, the opener of the 2020 Slamdance Film Festival, speaks its truth and speaks it beautifully. Let it be heard.” – Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Hammer to Nail
“Film About a Father Who is simply a masterpiece. Ultimately, a parent’s legacy is found in their children and the worth of Ira Sachs Sr. is found in his “tribe” of talented, artistic offsprings.” – Nina Rothe, E. Nina Rothe.com
“In this compelling and genuine documentary, [Sachs] has…taken the audience on a hypnotic and profound journey.” – Alexandra Hidalgo, Agnès Films
“Lynne’s newest, Film About a Father Who, brings that unflinching honesty to a new level. Because this is a personal story told by the children forced to come to terms with his behavior, preserving that ambiguity also, as Lynne herself puts it, preserves the truth. Both Lynne and we are perhaps no closer to understanding Ira Sr. by film’s end, but we at least know him as his children do and all things considered, that’s nothing short of miraculous.” – Mariso Carpico, The Pop Break
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
Even during the film’s years-long protracted post-production, I was always scared and somehow motivated by my awareness that there would be extremely strong reactions to my film. My portrait of my father is one that includes my own rage and forgiveness, and finding the balance between the two was integral to expressing my own experience through the film’s images and voice-over narration. There have been a surprisingly large number of people who have written about the film or written to me directly about the film who have had similarly complex and fraught relationships with their own parents. It seems that watching “Film About a Father Who” gave them some new insight and perspective. There have also been other people who felt that I, as a woman, gave my dad too much of a break, that I was too kind to him when he only considered his own needs and desires rather than those of others around him. This point of view is reflective of the sentiments that have grown out of the women’s movement and more recently the Me-Too Movement. I feel such allegiance to these emotions, and yet when it came down to expressing my own experience, I had to allow for the nuances of a daughter’s own evolving love for her father.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
I would love for the visibility that We Are Moving Stories provides to lead to new conversations, surprising insights, future screenings and maybe a distributor!
Ira Sachs with painting
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
The film has quite a few upcoming festival screenings including Sarasota Film Festival, Indie Memphis, Sheffield Doc Festival in the UK, Montreal Documentary Festival, and Oxford Film Festival, but the pandemic has, of course, slowed everything down. I could definitely use some support from sales agents, buyers, programmers or distributor. Let’s talk!
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
While I have been making films for more than thirty years, each film I have made has led to a new relationship with a certain community. My film Your Day is My Night led me to the Asian and Asian-American community in the US, Canada and China and to a far deeper relationship with people living in Chinatown right here in NYC. My film Carolee, Barbara and Gunvor has led to amazing conversations around feminism, cinema and the avant-garde. We make films to lead us to new places, physically, artistically and emotionally. With Film About a Father Who I hope to go deep in conversation around family, rage, and forgiveness.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
In light of the current Me Too debate around men in power and their influence on the lives of the women around them, how can we find a context by which we can discuss the place of rage, dignity, and forgiveness?
Would you like to add anything else?
Thank you for inviting me to be part of your cinema community.
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
Lynne Sachs is currently working on Oh Ida: The Fluid Time Travels of a Radical Spirit, an essay film that will trace the erasure and recent emergence (in the form of monuments) of the story of activist and 2020 Pultizer Prize winning journalist Ida B. Wells who spent her early years in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee and committed her life to nurturing a spirit of liberation in the face of resounding oppression. In collaboration with historian and author Tera Hunter, I will produce a film using a hybrid form of cinematic time-travel that will examine Wells’s historical trajectory within the current controversies around American monuments by looking at their symbolic power, their historiographic influence on our collective consciousness, what they have been and what they could become.
Film About a Father Who poster
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women’s films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film – we’d love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker – can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
Film About a Father Who
Between 1984 and 2019, filmmaker Lynne Sachs shot a film with her father, a bohemian businessman who sometimes chose to reveal less than was really there.
Director: Lynne Sachs
Producer: Lynne Sachs
Writer: Lynne Sachs
About the writer, director and producer:
LYNNE SACHS makes films and writes poems that explore the intricate relationship between personal observations and broader historical experiences. Her work embraces hybrid forms, combining memoir, experimental and documentary modes. Recently, she has expanded her practice to include live performances.
Key cast: Ira Sachs Sr.
Looking for: sales agents, distributors, journalists, film festival directors, buyers
Funders: Partially supported by an artist residency at Yaddo.
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? The film is not streaming again in the coming month but it will be presented at Indie Memphis, Oxford Film Festival, Montreal International Documentary Festival, and Sheffield International Festival of Documentary Film.
May 1, 2020 Chapter 16 – A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby Book Excerpt: Year by Year
About Chapter 16 In response to the loss of book coverage in newspapers around the state, Humanities Tennessee founded Chapter 16 in 2009 to provide comprehensive coverage of literary news and events in Tennessee. Each weekday the site posts fresh content that focuses on author events across the state and new releases from Tennessee authors. In addition, Chapter 16 maintains partnerships with newspapers in each major media market statewide, and our content appears in print each week through the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the Nashville Scene, and the Knoxville News Sentinel. Through the site, social media, a weekly newsletter, and our newspaper partnerships, Chapter 16 reaches more than half a million readers on a good week.
When filmmaker Lynne Sachs turned fifty, she dedicated herself to writing a poem for every year of her life, so far. Each of the fifty poems investigates the relationship between a singular event in Sachs’ life and the swirl of events beyond her domestic universe.
In May 2020, Chapter 16 featured a “2010” from the collection of 50 poems.
2010
In the eventuality that preparation for security advanced signatures obtained life jackets confirmed permanent medical records sealed pharmaceuticals delivered weather reported batteries checked tires filled expiration avoided warnings acknowledged wills signed if-and-only-ifs collected and still no one anticipated the return of my brother-in-law’s cancer.
A friend forgot to send her payment — a single check she never put in the envelope, hidden under a stack of receipts, appointment cards, and electricity bills. The check, never arrived. Her policy, cancelled.
She who had already given up her ovaries and come face-to-face in the ring with illness, won that round. Now no rope to hold onto, no pillows to fall back on. We two friends of more than twenty years sit at a table in a café talking of our homes, books we’ve read, people almost forgotten, purses with zippers, jump ropes, kitchen counters, projects abandoned.
I ask her about her health. She’s crossing her fingers That’s all she has until they pass that bill.
