Synopsis
Alternative life? Director Moritz Springer seeks answers to uncomfortable questions about the 68ers and the Nazi era in his own family. (Süddeutsche Zeitung, SZ.de)What exactly is family? In what way are we shaped by the fates of our forebears? "My Grandpa, Karin and I" is an intimate glimpse into the filmmaker's family life. His grandparents are old and needy. They live in a retirement home. The grandfather expects daughter Karin to take care of him now that grandmother can't manage anymore. And Karin does visit them regularly, although her parents are strangers to her and she's busy with her own life. Unresolved conflicts break out. Father and daughter suffer. The grandson wants to mediate between the former National Socialist and his mother, who had sought new ways of life and roles for women during the 1968 movement and rebelled against her father's SS past and her parents' bourgeois lifestyle. The film traces and juxtaposes these varying perspectives that constitute pieces of German history. Grandfather and mother struggle to get closer while the grandson wonders why this should be so difficult. Yet the longer the impasse continues, the more he realises that he too is implicated in this generational conflict. And so an unexpected, open exchange between Karin and her son ensues. The roles of interviewer and interviewee become blurred whilst the camera is part of the action, affording viewers proximity to family events without tarring them as voyeurs.