Cigaretta mon amour - Portrait meines Vaters

Up-and-coming director Rosa Hannah Ziegler made this portrait of her father, who spends his days in a room, giving in to his destructive longing for cigarettes. Just like Alain Resnais's feature film (Hiroshima mon amour) from 1959 that the title refers to, this documentary was shot in black-and-white, and recollection, oblivion, longing and destruction are the dominant themes. Starting with close-ups of skin like a landscape, followed by fingers rolling a cigarette, an unshaven old man slowly appears, lying in bed like a junkie. On the soundtrack, we hear city noises. But when the man gets out of bed, puts on a bathrobe and pulls the curtains open, the camera suddenly reveals an outside world with trees in a garden where birds are singing. In a dream-like sequence, the man walks around in his bathrobe in a misty landscape with ploughed soil, followed by a close-up of an ashtray containing the scorched debris of butts. Physically, the man has not left his hiding place - he is looking at pictures on the wall. One of them displays a woman. His face is reflected in the glass. Then he closes the curtains again, goes back to bed, another cigarette between his lips and smoke around his head. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)