In the Wake of a Deadad

Colour, BETA SP
United Kingdom, 2006, 60 min
Section: Cinema Gallery

Synopsis

This isn’t the first film in which Andrew Kötting introduces a personal note and also involves members of his family. After the death of his father he had an image created of him: a four-metre-high inflatable figure. This “Deadad” accompanies performer Kötting to sixty locations which were important in some way for his father and his entire family. The meditation on parents, children, death, mourning and on “what’s left”, however, gradually becomes more complicated: the performer receives an unexpected letter, revealing a secret which leads him to create another blow-up figure. The film might spark all sorts of feelings – from emotion and enjoyment, to a sense of cruelty, blasphemy and reconciliation. It’s a “chapel erected in memory of my father, a study of patriarchal bonds and the secular exorcism of a difficult relationship”.

About the director

Andrew Kötting (b. 1959, Kent, England) considers himself essentially as a performer. His installations, film screenings and exhibitions have been shown both in Europe and America since the 1980s. This distinctive British artist tends to get personal in his films. His feature-length debut Gallivant (1996) traces his journey along the coast of Britain with his 85-year-old gran Gladys and 7-year-old daughter Eden, who suffers from a permanent speech impediment. Another of the films documents the trip which this eccentric performer made across the Channel. “Even today I don’t consider myself to be a filmmaker,” says Kötting, “I just create longer works.”