Hunting Down Memory

Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company

2005

At Baycrest, an old-age home in Toronto, we follow a social worker as she talks to residents, particularly Max, Claire, Ida, and Rachel. The film opens on Claire's birthday, she's 89; Max, a tiny cheerful man, is her close friend. Rachel is lonesome, missing her son, complaining he rarely visits. Ida relies on memory for her solace. Helen has no memory and doesn't recognize her daughter; her moods swing. Murray keeps his cap on and likes women. Staff members bring medication, provide care, and offer small talk. Memory is fleeting: Claire re-experiences the death of a close companion several times, each time without remembering her previous grieving. Lives are circumscribed

As You Are

2023

A glimpse into a visual representation of memory; A Christmas-time series of meals, coffees, and movies, with friends, lovers, and housemates. Faced with the compounding of faces and places, each moment begins to collide with one another: voices are muddled, and faces are broken. How is memory created? How are they separated from one another?

Forgetting Dad

2008

A man suffers a minor car accident, and a week later constructs a new identity, claiming he can't "remember" being a father. Nearly twenty years later, his amnesia persists, yet no brain damage or physical cause are ever found. Enthralling and thought-provoking, "Forgetting Dad" offers an award-winning case study of dissociation, parental abandonment, and family enmenshment in mental illness.

ATAVISM

2024

Within the video, two screens coexist. On the primary screen, a repetitive action takes place - the photo in the hands is periodically blurred. The focus of the viewer's attention is shifted to the secondary screen, which is more dynamic. The face in front of the camera, resembling clay, tries to take on images from archival photographs and video recordings.

Anamnesis

2021

An audiovisual representation of the degenerative dementia process based on real reports from people affected with this condition.

El pisto

2022

Pop

1999

Pop chronicles the journey of three generations of Meyerowitz men on a road trip from Florida to the Bronx, in exploration of their familial roots. Joel’s father, Hy, is battling Alzheimer’s disease and so they embark on a “quest to see if, along the way, the adventures and experiences we would have could stimulate his now rapidly failing memory.” The film directed and produced by our Joel Meyerowitz. It is touching, funny, poignant, and beautifully captures the strength of intimacy between fathers and sons.

Unknown White Male

2005

The true story of Doug Bruce who woke up on Coney Island with total amnesia. This documentary follows him as he rediscovers himself and the world around him.

Spaces

2020

Aged around 20, Simon has a brain tumour that is gradually destroying his memory and has condemned him to live in the immediate present. From this painful experience, his sister, Nora Štrbová, a filmmaker, has made an organic short animated documentary, which succeeds with a rare formal relevance to represent the inexorable loss of the being.

La desmemoriada

2018

A tribute to the Chilean actress Myriam Palacios, edited from scenes of some films in which she participated, interviews, photos, memories of her colleagues and home archives. Both a collage and a poetic portrait of intimacy.

Don't Look Back

2009

Panic attacks and memory loss signal the plight of a writer whose body is inexplicably being taken over by another woman.

Where Danger Lives

1950

A young doctor falls in love with a disturbed young woman and apparently becomes involved in the death of her husband. They head for Mexico trying to outrun the law.

Shadow Puppets

2007

Director Michael Winnick's chilling tale stars James Marsters as Jack, one of eight captives who awaken in an abandoned asylum not knowing who they are or why they are together. They discover that they've been used in an experiment to erase disturbing memories, but instead, a murderous creature has been unleashed. Reaching out from the shadows, the monster hunts the eight strangers as they race to escape the asylum.

A Tale of Five Cities

1951

An Englishman has been working in the US so long he now speaks with an American accent. He is drafted into the British Army during WWII but is injured and loses his memory. Because he talks like an American, the doctors repatriate him to the States where he is housed with a New York family. After the war they all travel throughout Europe, searching for the women he still remembers in the hope of restoring his lost memory

Empire of the Wolves

2005

When the young detective Paul Nerteaux finds the third slashed female corpse of illegal Turkish immigrants, he decides to ask for support to the experienced dark retired detective Jean-Louis Schiffer to chase the serial killer. Together, they infiltrate in the Turkish mafia trying to find the answer to the crimes. Meanwhile, the worker Anna Heymes is being submitted to a brain treatment and has severe headaches and glimpses of memories and visions. When these two parallel events collide, disclose that the Turkish organization "The Wolves" is behind them.