"When two people live in the same apartment, see each other every day, and also love each other,
their daily conversations bring their two memories into line: by tacit and unconscious consent
they leave vast areas of their life unremembered, and they talk time and time again about
the same few events out of which they weave a joint narrative that, like a breeze in the boughs,
murmurs above their heads and reminds them constantly that they have lived together."
––Ignorance, Milan Kundera
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
 
memories

German title:

Erinnerungen
 
Length: 19'  
Year of production: 2004  
Format: BetaSp / MiniDV, Pal or NTSC  
Voice-over: Sylvia Schedelbauer  
Language: original Version in German
English version: 2010  
Synopsis:

A woman grows up during the bubbly economy in Japan. Why did her parents never speak about the past? Using a box full of photos found in her family archive, the filmmaker tries to construct one version of a family history.

 


 

"War and conflict bookend this untraditional family history, Schedelbauer's exploration of how the legacy of the mid/late 20 th century's complicated histories have shaped her own familial lineage. Constructed entirely of family photos, from documents of her grandfather's questionable involvement with the Nazis, to the joint narratives of her German father and Japanese mother, and finally to her own coming of age during the first Gulf War, Memories explores the vagaries and construction of memory and history." [Chi-hui Yang, program notes, The 2008 Robert Flaherty Film Seminar
]




"Sylvia Schedelbauer's film begins with the word 'Erinnerungen' (Memories), on what looks like an innocuous photo album. The next image reveals the German Nazi emblem above that word. Behind the cover of her grandfather's album are stories of his life in the German military during National Socialism. The grandchild tries to recognize a relative she never even met in photos of the troops, a man who died at Stalingrad. After the war, Schedelbauer's voiceover continues, her father had moved to Japan as a commercial agent, where he had married a local woman.

Born in Japan, Schedelbauer herself grows up bicultural in a society that remains alien to her, and only discovers deeper reasons for her alienation as an adult: Those who do not know their roots will have an uneasy place in the present, the ‚here and now.' Both her father and mother remain silent about the past. Schedelbauer endeavours to find a narrative history to explain the photos; at the same time, she questions her search for identity."

[Festival magazine, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, 2005]

 
 


Screenings:
 
 
2010 Stan Brakhage Symposium, Boulder, USA
2009 artist's talk at Image Movement, Berlin
2009 Filmklub in Takino, Liechtenstein
2008 Werkstatt der Kulturen, Berlin
2008 Flaherty NYC, Anthology Film Archives, New York
2008 Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, USA
2008 Flaherty Film Seminar, Colgate College, New York
2006 Center for Contemporary Art Tel Aviv, Oberhausen Program 1
2006 Wand 5 Stuttgarter Filmwinter
2006 Cinematheque Jerusalem, Oberhausen Program 1
2006 Festival Signes du Nuit Paris
2006 “Dislocations” Videoscreening, NewYorkRioTokio, Berlin
2006 “History Recovered”, Other Cinema, San Francisco
2006 “traveler–auf Reisen wohnen” Videoscreening, Gallerie Sammler, Leipzig
2006 Zwergwerk, Oldenburger Kurzfilmtage
2005 Tesla Salon im Podewil'schen Palais, Berlin
2005 Flensburger Kurzfilmtage
2005 Europäische Kurzfilmbiennale Ludwigsburg
2005 Shadow Festival Amsterdam
2005 Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin
2005 Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen

Awards
 

2006 Directorʼs Citation Black Maria Film Festival



   
Interview on OtherZine  
Portrait on RNW  
EditRegion3