Ties That Bind, The


Rental Format(s): 16mm film

An experimental documentary about my mother's life in Nazi Germany and her eventual marriage to an American soldier. In the voiceover, she recounts her experiences, while the images portray her current life in Chicago, the assembly of a model German house, contemporary peace marches, archival footage of Germany, sensationalist newspaper headlines, her first years in America, and much more, woven together to create a dialogue between past and present, mother and daughter.

"The best of the New Directors/New Films Festival. ... The film is an original: a moving and courageous tribute from a child to her mother's beleaguered memory." - David Edelstein, The Village Voice

"... the ties that bind are not only the supposed benevolences of motherhood, but also the repressive dictates of the Fatherland .... In effect the film is like a court transcript of a mother brought to trial (albeit kindly) by her own daughter ... [I]t connects its effective literalism with a group of complex issues: the shifting attributes of memory, the repression of familial contempt and the economy of fascism." - Barbara Kruger, Artforum

Exhibition: New Directors/New Films, Museum of Modern Art, NY, 1985; Whitney Museum of American Art Retrospective, 1987; Women's Film Festivals in Montreal, Rome, and Holland, 1984-1986; Festival of NY Independent Films in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, 1986.

Rental Fees

  Fee  
16mm film $220.00  

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