Memoirs of the Dead House revolves around my father's condition as a “voices listener”, diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1989 and subjected to psychiatric treatment for more than 30 years. The documentary is conceived as a listening game, an exercise in attentiveness and a labyrinth of intersecting narratives that poses a deconstruction of family memories. Through testimonies, the film moves towards the discovery of the narratives that sustain the representations of mental illness and madness, connecting the family taboo with the latent traumas of the authoritarian heritage of the Spanish State.
Halfway between biographical account and ethnographic chronicle, the film explores the linguistic and fictional character of the other in family narratives, where models of explanation of madness expose the threshold of undecidability and the diffusion of taboo as a space of circulation between silence, prohibition, prejudice and stigma.
Halfway between biographical account and ethnographic chronicle, the film explores the linguistic and fictional character of the other in family narratives, where models of explanation of madness expose the threshold of undecidability and the diffusion of taboo as a space of circulation between silence, prohibition, prejudice and stigma.
Programa de Estudios Independientes del MACBA.
Documentary film
Barcelona, 2018.
Documentary film
Barcelona, 2018.
© 2021 I David Pérez