Block 5. Fathers


Set of films
dir. Jack Dunphy ("Bob's Funeral"); Ömer Sami ("Eternal Father"); Siddharth Potade, Nikhil Lama ("Dentures"); Camilla Jämting ("Project Dad") / USA/2023 („Bob's Funeral”); Denmark/2023 ("Eternal Father"); India/2023 ("Dentures"); Norway, Sweden, Estonia/2023 ("Project Dad") / 94 min
Younger and older, responsible and less so, beloved and hated. In four completely different films, four different fathers show what the parent-child relationship can look like and how important it is for both sides.
Bob's Funeral
duration: 19 min
country/year: USA/2023
director: Jack Dunphy
cinematography: Alexander Girav
editor: Jack Dunphy
producer: Andrew Morrison / Dumpy Films
selected festivals and awards: 2024 – Sundance FF
Searching for the root of generational trauma, the director takes a camera into his estranged grandfather’s funeral.

Searching for the root of generational trauma, the director takes a camera into his estranged grandfather’s funeral.

Eternal Father
duration: 31 min
country/year: Denmark/2023
director: Ömer Sami
cinematography: Roxana Reiss
editor: Ania de Sá
producer: Alma Dyekjær Giese, Paul Moakley / The National Film School of Denmark, The New Yorker
selected festivals and awards: 2023 – IDFA Amsterdam
In an attempt to cheat death, the amiable Brit Nasar wants to be cryonically frozen at the moment when his heart stops beating.

Nasar still feels young. But the truth is that the time he has ahead of him is becoming much shorter than the time behind him. His body is starting to show wear and tear, and there’s a chance he won’t live to see his young children grow up. In an attempt to cheat death, the amiable Brit wants to be cryonically frozen at the moment when his heart stops beating –the idea is that in a distant future, all being well, he can then return to life again. The film unfolds in the warm embrace of the family, observing the effects of Nasar’s decision on his loved ones from within. His desire to evade death, partly inspired by the traumatic loss of his mother, means that the family members are constantly preoccupied with his mortality –as well as their own. After all, what sense does it make if Nasar has himself frozen but his wife and children don’t? What if he wakes up in a world full of strangers?

Dentures
duration: 16 min
country/year: India/2023
director: Siddharth Potade, Nikhil Lama
cinematography: Jigmet Wangchuk
editor: Parashar Naik
producer: Prabhav Sharma, Siddharth Potade
selected festivals and awards: 2023 – Visions Du Réel, Nyon, 2023 – IDFA Amsterdam
It is a special day for Ajju: he is celebrating his father's 90th birthday. The father suffers from dementia and has problems recognizing his own son.

It is a special day for Ajju: he is celebrating his father's 90th birthday. However, the latter is suffering from dementia. He is continually losing his bearings and has problems recognizing his own son. While his party is ongoing, the father embarks on a solitary quest to find his teeth, presumably lost somewhere in the hotel where the celebration is taking place. For him, the hotel is a strangely familiar non-place, completely void of memories, which he wanders through in a disconcerting hallucinatory quest for his missing prosthesis.

Project Dad
duration: 28 min
country/year: Norway, Sweden, Estonia/2023
director: Camilla Jämting
cinematography: Petter Blix
editor: Truls Krane Meby
producer: Camilla Jämting / Jämting Konstfilm
selected festivals and awards: 2024 – Göteborg FF
Camilla's dad is a pick-up artist who teaches other men how to succeed on Tinder. Camilla is an artist and a feminist. How can they maintain a strong bond?

Camilla's dad is a pick-up artist who teaches other men how to succeed on Tinder, and who seeks self-development through ice-cold topless walks inspired by Wim Hof. Camilla is an artist and a feminist, and there's not much she and her father agree on. How can they maintain a strong bond?

Bob's Funeral
Bob's Funeral
dir. Jack Dunphy, USA 2023, 19 min
Eternal Father
Eternal Father
dir. Ömer Sami, Denmark 2023, 31 min
Dentures
Dentures
dir. Siddharth Potade, Nikhil Lama, India 2023, 16 min
Project Dad
Project Dad
dir. Camilla Jämting, Norway, Sweden, Estonia 2023, 28 min

Other films from this section Short films

Other movies with this tag Middle East