FIGURING OUT FATHER – ABOUT NAPOLI – EX VOTO FOR THREE SOULS – PRODIGAL SONS
On Tuesday, March 17, a press conference was held as part of the 11th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. Those present were Kimberly Reed (Prodigal Sons), Robert Russo (About Napoli), Diego Rivera Kohn (Ex-voto for Three Souls) and Sandra Lohr (Figuring Out Father).
“If you don’t deal with your past, you’ll come face to face with it at some point”, noted Kimberly Reed speaking about her film Prodigal Sons. The film started out as the story of her adoptive brother, but in developed into a voyage of self discovery and redefinition for her herself. “My relationship with my brother is the core of the film. It’s not only he who discovers a new identity, but me as well, in trying to reconnect with someone with whom there were no blood ties”. As she confided, the film held many surprises for her, such as that her adoptive brother is the grandson of Orson Wells and Rita Hayworth.
When Robert Russo heard a cousin of his speaking about Naples, that beautiful but “dark” city they are descended from, he decided to make the documentary About Napoli. “When you don’t know where you want to go, then all roads lead you there, Lewis Carroll said. I was led to Naples, where I recorded the lives of its inhabitants. Their answers compose a warm image of what happens in that chaotic, beautiful and often dangerous city”, he noted. He then spoke about the presence of the mafia, noting that even though crime is not visible, life in the city can’t escape from the crime network that has ruled the area for many years.
Diego Rivera Kohn, in his documentary Ex-voto for Three Souls approaches the spirituality and faith of Mexicans in a different manner. As he explained during the press conference, he uses very little dialogue in order to make the audience to follow the path of the images and to perceive the holy in everyday life. “I used art, trying to express the mystery of God through images”, he stressed. “All three of my heroes, the woman waiting for surgery, the fisherman and the boxer who each hope for good fishing and victory, have a semiotic connection to faith: The heart, where our dreams and hopes lie, and the fish which is a symbol for Christians”, Diego Rivera Kohn explained.
Sandra Lohr, in Figuring Out Father, presents the story of a Jewish woman born in 1916, who at an advanced age discovers that her father was the Austrian anarchist and psychoanalyst Otto Gross. “This is not a film where the hero finds what he’s looking for, since in this case the father had already died. The subject of this film is not the discovery but the search – for identity and for personal truth” the director noted.
