The Film Studies Center will be presenting three film screenings and discussions to celebrate the retirement of Dominique Bluher, Lecturer in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies, Department of Romance Languages and Literature, Department of Visual Arts, and the College.
While enjoying a summer love affair in Paris in 1984, director Joseph Morder reflects on his unusual childhood in Ecuador, the haven to which his parents escaped from persecution by the Nazis in Poland during World War II. Because nothing remains of his childhood but memories, Morder substitutes images of Parisian streets and buildings that replace the streets and buildings of Guayaquil, and uses actors to stand in for the figures from his childhood recollections. The result is a film that blurs the lines between fiction and documentary, a film autobiography driven by emotion rather than history. (Joseph Morder, 1988, France, 80 min., 16mm print courtesy of Harvard Film Archive)