Pulling from home video, and footage shot between 1965 and 2019 (on six different formats no less: 8 and 16mm, VHS, Hi8, Mini DV, and digital), Film About centers on Ira Sachs, a successful bohemian businessman who worked out of a shoebox, looked at Park City, Utah, the way others looked at a tropical beach and had an Achilles heel for women. Daughter Lynne Sachs finds asymmetry in her father’s story, but the longer the cameras roll, the more Film About becomes her story—and her sibling’s story. At one point in the movie, Sachs describes it as “looking at something from the inside and outside.” The more you watch, the more contradictions you find and the more your assumptions are punctured.

Film About a Father Who (2020)
Written and directed by Lynne Sachs
Not rated, Running time 74 minutes, Premiered Jan. 24, 2020 at the Slamdance Film Festival

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A version of the above blurb first appeared in the Boulder Weekly Vol. 28, No. 50, “The art of the real.”