Paternal Rites

Jules Rosskam; 2018; USA; 82 min.

Part road movie, part experimental animation, part found-footage collage, PATERNAL RITES takes its inspiration from podcasts like This American Life and Radiolab and filmmakers such as Jenni Olson and Marlon Riggs to deeply explore the American family and its false dreams of normalcy. By painting a portrait in fragments, filmmaker Jules Rosskam creates an extraordinarily intimate examination of the relationship between trauma and memory, the structuring power of absence, the development of his own trans masculinity and Jewish identity, and the healing power of being present. Criterion refers to this beautifully rendered film as “gorgeously crafted and breathtaking…unlike any you’ve ever seen before.”