The Father1986

DER FATHER is a collage of authentic film footage from the thirties, shot by the film-maker's father (in black and white) and additional new footage (in color). The concept of the film is to make the viewer see the father's footage – expressing his patriarchal and colonitistic point-of-view, his image of himself, his male fantasies, etc. – through the daughter's eyes. It is thus a film about the problematical, libidinal as well as critical, relationship between daughter and father. Translation of the intertitles of DER FATHER: 1) DER FATER =THE FATHER. 2) It is a strange feeling to look at the footage my father shot more than fifty years ago. – He died early, from the after effect of a tropical disease. 3) My father, Dr. Kurt Noll, was a doctor, a hunter, an adventurer, an amateur filmmaker and an amateur anthropologist. This combination of professions justifies his appropriation of large part of the world. He emigrated to China as a young man. By the beginning of the 1930's, he already owned a 16mm camera and a private hospital in Shanghai. He could thus afford to travel extensively through many countries: sometimes as a hunter or explorer like Sven Hedin, sometimes as a medical advisor to prominent Chinese patients.