Father’s Garden – The Love of My Parents

About this event

In this deeply personal documentary, Peter Liechti returns to his elderly parents after years of mutual avoidance. The two could hardly be more different: the father tends his allotment garden with exacting care and insists on order and control; the mother irons his shirts, reads books, and regrets never travelling. Their conversations – sometimes comically absurd, sometimes painful – lay bare patriarchal attitudes and a quiet loneliness at the heart of a 62-year marriage. As a visual counterpoint, Liechti restages their dialogues on a miniature puppet stage: mother and father become rabbit puppets, while a puppet avatar of the son erupts in rage. Disorienting sound effects and musical outbursts periodically shatter the documentary calm, adding an unsettling, almost theatrical distance. The result is an unsentimental yet empathetic portrait of a generation whose certainties have long since faded away. The screening includes a brief introduction; the film is presented in Swiss German with German subtitles and no English support.