Credits
Director CV (46k Word Doc) PRESS PICTURES
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FILM LONDON
FILM COUNCIL BLURBS
One liners Maybe it's not just your mum and dad who f*** you up
Maybe it's not just your mum and dad who muck you up Heart of Darkness meets Steptoe and Son - in Weymouth
Some family trees get more complicated with every branch...
Synopsis (25 Words)
Worried for his son, comedy director Jes Benstock visits the dark corners of his family tree - armed with a videophone, his dad and a therapist.
Synopsis (50 words)
After the birth of his son, director Jes Benstock starts to worry about his family history. This animated documentary looks into the hidden influences that the past generations exert on our personality. Moving and often funny, the film brings to light some simple but elusive truths about love in families.
Synopsis (75 words)
Maybe it's not just your mum and dad who muck you up!
Some family trees get more complicated with every branch.
Armed with a videophone, his dad and a therapist, director Jes Benstock explores a family history of murder, migration, breakdown and suicide in an attempt to free his young son from his family's complex legacy.
Poignant and funny, this animated documentary brings to light some simple but elusive truths about love in troubled families.
Full Synopsis
After the birth of his son, Jes Benstock found a new connection with his family. But his own family history is peppered with mental illnesses and suicides. His fears for his son's future fuel his quest to unearth family skeletons and try and understand the hidden influences the past generations can exert on our personality.
Jes encounters Bert Hellinger – a world renowned therapist who helps people by looking at their family system. He believes that problems in the present are linked to problems arising in previous generations. Families often exclude people and incidents they are ashamed of. Bert has discovered that when you reconnect with those excluded family members, a healing process is started.
Jes tries to introduce his son to as many members of his family as possible – starting with a massive family reunion in Glasgow. This reunion is just one half of his mum's side of the family.
Jes realises that the answers may lie in his father's side of the family - about which he knows very little.
After becoming obsessed with family research, Jes takes the results to his dad, who explains how his grandfather's family were all but wiped out in the pogroms that swept Eastern Europe in the late 19 th century. Is this the key to understanding the breakdowns and suicides in the family history?
He takes his Dad back to where he grew up in the hope of finding out about his hidden family history. He learns about a lost uncle – his dad's brother Malcolm who committed suicide after a history of mental illness and shock treatment. For the first time, his dad shows him photographs of his childhood in Weymouth – many of the photographs were taken by Malcolm. And the photgraphs of Malcolm resemble Jes.
Another visit to Bert Hellinger encourages Jes to introduce his son Jacob to his uncle Malcolm as a way of breaking the patterns of the past. Using photographs young Jacob meets Malcolm – he says of one photograph of Malcolm “That's my dad!”
Jes takes Jacob and his father on a pilgrimage to visit the grave of his father's father – the first Jacob Benstock. Jacob finds a stick and some acorns and plays snooker on his Great-Grandad's grave. "He would have loved this" says Jes's dad Ben.
TECHNIQUE
This experimental documentary was shot using 3G videophones and digital stills cameras shooting onto “memory” - to echo the themes of invisible and ephemeral memories.
This footage was supported by shooting on a PD150 and a low quality consumer camcorder.
The finished documentary is structured by a series of 3d computer animated family trees - to illustrate the elaborate network of connections that makes up Jes's life and Bert's ideas.
The sound design was created using an old Jewish prayer as the core of the music – and then removing it at the end – continuing the theme of missing parts of the picture. The result is a moody swirling soundscape with a sad tinge.
Credits
Director CV (46k Word Doc)
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