First culinary activity - then watching a movie: After the death of her father, filmmaker Lisa Marie Stojčev travels to Bulgaria to research his escape story from 1965 and her own origins. "That was 1965" is a personal, essay-like film about memory, identity and the search for belonging.
Film description: After the sudden death of her father, filmmaker Lisa Marie Stojčev sets out in search of her origins and the story of his escape from Bulgaria to West Germany in 1965. Together with her two friends - the film's cameraman and musician - she travels through Bulgaria. They examine places, texts, letters, documents and archive footage of her family. "That was 1965" is an essay-like, personal search, a memory-like dive between times and places. A feeling of what it must have been like for the 28-year-old Stojčo to leave Bulgaria and people close to him and arrive in West Germany. An ongoing conversation and a pen pal relationship with a dead father. "Mili Tate, dear dad, when you were lowered into the ground lying in your coffin, I thought that all my ties to Bulgaria were going into the ground with you. But that was just the fear inside me speaking up again..." And yet, the relationship with Bulgaria is fragile and complicated for the daughter. Why? Where does the derogatory view of people from the Balkans that she felt as a child come from? Was it this view that made her father decide not to teach her his language, to make her name German and only take her to the home that is also hers at the age of 15?
Credits:
Director, writer, producer: Lisa Marie Stojčev
Camera: Grigory Shklyar
Music and original sound: Rahel Hutter
Editing: Lukas Sydney Loßdörfer (bfs)
Sound design and mixing: Larissa Kischk
Research supported by: Academy of the Arts, Fonds Darstellende Künste
