FILM ABOUT A FATHER WHO

Lynne Sachs • United States • 2020 • 74 min.

Lynne Sachs
United States • 2020 • 74 min.

SYNOPSIS

From 1984 to 2019, Lynne Sachs shot film of her father, a bon vivant and pioneering businessman.
This documentary is her attempt to understand the web that connects a child to her parent and a sister to her siblings. With a nod to Cubist renderings of a face, Sachs’ exploration offers simultaneous, sometimes contradictory, views of one seemingly unknowable man who is publicly the uninhibited center of the frame yet privately ensconced in secrets.  As the startling facts mount, Sachs as a daughter discovers more about her father than she had ever hoped to reveal.

TRAILER

AWARDS

Documentary Feature Award
Athens International Film + Video Festival. United States (2021)
Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature 
Mimesis Documentary Festival. U.S. (2021)
 

FESTIVALS & ALTERNATIVE SCREENINGS

Slamdance Film Festival. U.S. (2020)
MoMA Doc Fortnight. U.S. (2020)
Sarasota Film Festival. U.S. (2020)
Sheffield Doc/Fest. UK (2020)
DocAviv International Documentary Film Festival. Israel (2020)
Gimli Film Festival. Canada (2020)
BendFilm Festival. U.S. (2020)
Doclisboa International Film Festival. Portugal (2020)
Indie Memphis Film Festival. U.S. (2020)
RIDM International Documentary Film Festival Montréal. Canada (2020)
MoMI · Museum of the Moving Image, NY. U.S. (2021)
DocPoint Tallinn International Documentary Film Festival. Estonia (2021)
National Gallery of Art, Washington. U.S. (2021)
VoxFeminae Film Festival. Croatia (2021)
Costa Rica International Film Festival. Costa Rica (2021)
Mostra Internazionale Del Nuovo Cinema Di Pesaro. Italy (2021)
Boulder Film Festival. U.S. (2021)
Bilbao Arte Fundazioa. Spain (2021)
Cámara Lúcida Festival Internacional de Cine Contemporáneo. Ecuador (2021)
Cork Int’l Film Festival | aemi |  Artist in Focus: Lynne Sachs. Ireland (2021)
Rétrospective American Fringe, SAISON 5 | La Cinémathèque française. France (2021)
La Casa Encendida • Ciclo Cine Contemporáneo: Álbum de Familia. Spain (2022)
A4 | Space for Contemporary Culture, Bratislava • Minizoom Lynne Sachs. Slovenia (2022)
MajorDocs Creative Documentary Film Festival. Spain (2022)
Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago. United States (2023)
Pleasure Dome, Toronto. Canada (2023)
Beykoz Kundura Cinema. Turkey (2023)

PRESS

"Sachs achieves a poetic resignation about unknowability inside families, and the hidden roots never explained from looking at a family tree."

LOS ANGELES TIMES • by Robert Abele

"The countless discoveries that Sachs artfully reveals throughout the film are enough to satisfy, with a remarkable final twist that will take your breath away"

DOC WEEKLY • by Benjamin Hollis

"A powerful, haunting film."

AWFJ • by Alliance of Women Film Journalists

"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 74 minutes, yet, masterfully, she does."

HAMMER TO NAIL • by Christopher LlewellynReed

"When you dig deep enough into family histories, they can seem like an unending chain of cruelties suffered and inflicted in turn, but Lynne Sachs’ spirit of intelligent compassion lights up the film, giving voice to the anger and pain, but also providing the space and distance needed to recover from it."

FILM SCRATCHES • by David Finkelstein

"A brisk, prismatic richy psychodramatic family portrait...the movie runs only 74 minutes, but it contains lifetimes."

NEW YORK TIMES • by Ben Kenigsberg

CREW

DIRECTOR
Lynne Sachs

SCREENWRITER
Lynne Sachs

PRODUCER
Lynne Sachs

SOUND DESIGN
Kevin T. Allen

EDITING
Rebecca Shapass

ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK
Stephen Vitiello

COLOR GRADING
Jason Crump
Metropolis Post

U.S. DISTRIBUTOR
Cinema Guild

FESTIVALS & WORLD SALES
María Vera (Kino Rebelde)

AVAILABLE ONLINE

Territories:
U.S and Canada

Territories: Worldwide
Exceptions: United States and Canada

Territories: Portugal

Territories: Spain