Memories for a Private Eye

Memories for a Private Eye is the first chapter in a trilogy that investigates the filmmaker’s personal archive. Evoking the language of film noir, it foregrounds the fictional detective Marc McPhearson from the film Laura by Otto Preminger (1943), to help unfold deep and traumatic memories. The film spirals around a lost image: the only moving image of the filmmaker’s dead mother. How is absence lived? What remains of war, death, and love with the passing of time? These are the questions that are delicately displayed for contemplation. While dwelling on the past, the film weaves together images from different sources—private archive, cinema, television, YouTube—unfolding into a labyrinthine maze, and creating a blueprint of remembrance itself.

Presented on e-flux Video & Film alongside Threshold (2018), as the November 2022 edition of Staff Picks featuring Rania Stephan.

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