Rob Munday
After screening at more than 100 festivals worldwide, critically acclaimed animated-documentary Father is finally released online, premiering here on Short of the Week. Based on 5-true stories, directed by 5-different animators, Father is (as the title suggests) a film that examines the importance of the paternal relationship in a child’s upbringing.
In Father the reality of life is turned upside down to create an impossible dialogue – the dialogue between a child and a father that never happens.
Stark in colour, yet rich in style, Father displays an aesthetic that only seems possible from having 5-different directors working on their own sections of the film. Aligned together through a shared colour palette, the separate narrative threads effortlessly transition throughout the film’s 16-minute duration, with the move from one story/style to the next never obtrusive and never jarring.
As you would probably expect from a film that blends 5-different tales, from 5-different voices, Father is a short of highs and lows – with some approaches working better than others. This amalgamation format is always going to be one that throws up mixed results, but although Father has a few dips in engagement, as a whole it is a fascinating piece to absorb. Although one story of a father’s influence (or lack of) may have provided a more personal (and some could argue more emotional) tale, this combined effort provides more of a message on fatherhood as a whole – its many voices providing a diverse dialogue on the role of the patriarchal figure in the family.
As someone fairly new to fatherhood myself, I have to admit, I was expecting the stories contained with Father to resonate a bit deeper than they did with me. Maybe as I’m still in the early years of parenthood, the level of responsibility and impact I have for my son hasn’t quite taken hold yet. Or maybe my own experiences with my father, meant I found it hard to relate to the idea of having unresolved issues with him. Father is a short that will offer different messages to different people, every single one of us will have felt the impact of a father in our lives and that will obviously affect how we read the concepts covered in this short. For me, personally, it is as much a cautionary tale, as it is a troublesome insight – watching this film I couldn’t help but think what impact I would have on my son’s life. As a parent, we all worry that our behaviours and our actions will have an effect on the lives of our children and although this is no revolutionary new theory…sometimes we all need reminding of it.
Filmmakers Notes: Father was produced by Compote Collective (Bulgaria) in co-production with Bonobostudio (Croatia) and Eyecatch Productions (Germany). In charge of the overall direction and supervision was Bulgarian director Ivan Bogdanov, who worked with five directors from across Europe to create five stories: Asparuh Petrov and Rositsa Raleva from Bulgaria, Dmitry Yagodin from Russia, Veljko Popovic from Croatia and Moritz Mayerhofer from Germany.