Vaters Garten – Die Liebe meiner Eltern

One day, Peter Liechti bumps into his elderly father on the street. They both act as if they are complete strangers. This embarrassingly awkward situation, so bizarre and yet so familiar, is the starting point of his film, in which Liechti decides to get to know his aging parents as if for the first time, and to make them rediscover each other. He interviews each separately, asking the same questions and raising difficult family issues that usually remain unspoken. His mother and father turn out to be very different from one another in character and personality, and both can only wonder how they have managed to stay together for sixty-two years. A highly personal film raising issues of basic European values and rituals – marriage, family, home, discipline, labour… and the way these shape our lives, sometimes against our will. A loving and daring film that only a son could make about his parents.

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