It has all the makings of a good Robert Ludlum book: mistaken identity, the KGB, and paranoia.
Shmuel Finkel
It has all the makings of a good Robert Ludlum book: mistaken identity, the KGB, and paranoia.
Shmuel Finkel
It takes place in Israel and in a prison block in the former Soviet Union. But Over My Dad’s Body is a true story.
The documentary, screening on Nov. 10 as part of the 17th Rendevous With Madness Film Festival, is about filmmaker Taliya Finkel’s search for the true identity of her uncle and her attempts to come to terms with her father’s illness.
In 1973, long before she was born, her father, Shmuel, made aliyah from Chernovitz, then in the Soviet Union. His brother, Sterik, was in a Soviet prison at the time but upon his release about two years later, he, too, moved to Israel.
Years later, Shmuel began to assert that Sterik wasn’t really his brother.
He believed his brother was killed, and this man was an imposter sent by the KGB to spy on Israel. Sterik refused to do a DNA test, and Shmuel believed that his brother was out to kill him.
Shmuel was diagnosed shortly thereafter with schizophrenia and descended into bouts of paranoia, believing his house was bugged.
That aside, his daughter wanted to find the truth. The basic premise of this film is, can a man diagnosed with schizophrenia and prone to flights of fancy tell the truth? She hires a private investigator and the two of them fly to Ukraine to dig into her uncle’s past. A letter she receives from Israel’s security service only deepens the mystery. It’s interesting, too, that her uncle refused to be interviewed for this film.
The documentary is interspersed with footage she took of her father before he committed suicide in a psychiatric hospital. As a teenager, Finkel was embarrassed of her father and making this movie, and searching for the truth, obviously serves as a catharsis for her.
This is a disturbing and deeply moving documentary.
Over My Dad’s Body screens Nov.10 at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, 1001 Queen St. W. The annual Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival deals with themes of madness and addiction and takes place Nov. 5 to 14. For a full schedule, visit www.rendezvouswithmadness.com.