Loading
loading...
A documentary film by Antonio Tibaldi & Alex Lora

thy father's chair

SEE THE FILM
Starting Friday March 30, 2018

Available on iTunes
Available on AMAZON

laurels

Synopsis

poster_tfc_rgb_forwebAbraham and Shraga are Orthodox Jewish aging twins who live a secluded existence in their inherited Brooklyn home. Since the death of their parents, they have stopped throwing away anything, hosting stray cats and accumulating all sorts of stuff.

Enraged by the situation, the upstairs tenant threatens to stop paying them rent unless they proceed with a radical cleaning of their apartment. Abraham and Shraga are forced to open their doors to a specialized cleaning company.

What ensues seems at first only a traumatic invasion of privacy, with the twins fighting to preserve their memories – but little by little the relationship with the head of the cleaning company begins to deepen. By painfully separating from most of their belongings, Abraham and Shraga might have a chance to recover their lost purity. They are pushed to find new solutions to many unanswered questions: how free are you within the boundaries of your heritage? How do you begin to let go the past go and live your life in the present? How do you confront the loss of your parents and become responsible for yourself?

Screenings

DATE

CITY

VENUE

TICKET

 Opening Mar. 25, 2018 Queens, New York  Queens World Film Festival BUY
 Opening Mar. 16, 2018 Napoli, Italy  AstraDoc BUY
 Opening Mar. 8, 2018 Torino, Italy  Cinema Massimo BUY
 Opening Mar. 6, 2018 Padova, Italy  Astra Multisala BUY
 Opening Jan. 21, 2018 Cleveland, Ohio  Cleveland Cinemateque BUY
 Opening Dec. 19, 2017 Milano, Italy  Cinema Beltrade BUY
 Opening Dec. 18, 2017 Bergamo, Italy  Auditorium BUY
 Opening Dec. 16, 2017 Monza, Italy  Bloom Mezzago BUY
 Opening Dec. 15, 2017 Perugia, Italy  Postmodernissimo BUY
 Opening Dec. 14, 2017 Rome, Italy  Apollo Undici BUY
 Opening Oct. 20, 2017 Los Angeles, CA  Laemmle Music Hall BUY
 Opening Oct. 13, 2017 New York, NY  Village East Cinema BUY
 Opening Jul. 4, 2017 Padova, Italy  Euganea Film Festival BUY
 Opening Feb.25, 2017 Madrid, Spain  Márgenes BUY
Opening Jan. 4, 2017 Chicago, Illinois T/F in Chicago BUY
Opening Dec. 3, 2016 Milan, Italy Filmmaker Festival BUY
Opening Nov. 16, 2016 Barcelona, Spain L’Alternativa Film Festival BUY
Opening Nov. 13, 2016 New York, New York DOC NYC BUY
Opening Nov. 9, 2016 Budapest, Hungary Verzio Film Festival BUY
Opening Oct. 14, 2016 Sydney, Australia Antenna Film Festival BUY
Opening Oct. 13, 2016 Barcelona, Spain MEDIMED BUY
Opening Sept. 17, 2016 Perm, Russia Flahertiana BUY
Opening Aug. 12, 2016 Prizren, Kosovo Dokufest BUY
Opening Jul. 25, 2016 San Francisco, California San Francisco Jewish Film Festival BUY
Opening Jun. 23, 2016 London, UK Open City Doc BUY
Opening Jun. 17, 2016 Bologna, Italy Biografilm BUY
Opening May 20, 2016 Tel Aviv, Israel DocAviv BUY
Opening May 17, 2016 Warsaw, Poland Docs Against Gravity BUY
Opening May 1, 2016 Madrid, Spain DocumentaMadrid BUY
Opening Apr. 15, 2016 Belfast, Ireland Belfast Film Festival BUY
Opening Mar. 29, 2016 Kiev, Ukraine DocuDays UA BUY
Opening Mar. 11, 2016 Thessaloniki, Greece Thessaloniki Documentary Festival BUY
Opening Mar. 3, 2016 Columbia, Missouri True/False BUY
Opening Mar. 1, 2016 Copenhagen, Denmark Danish Film Institute BUY
Opening Feb. 25, 2016 Copenhagen, Denmark CPH Jewish Film Festival BUY
Opening Nov. 20, 2015 Amsterdam, The Netherlands IDFA BUY

logo

People are saying

Viewers have never seen pack-ratting through the lens of "Thy Father's Chair," a new documentary that makes hoarding as urgent as global warming and as eye-catching as Al Gore's beard.

Steven Zeitchik, Los Angeles Times

People are saying

You wouldn’t expect a documentary about troubled hoarders to be warm and witty, but that is one of the more remarkable things about Lora and Tibaldi’s work

Ray Pride, NewCity Film

People are saying

A claustrophobic, cautionary peek into the cluttered chaos of an ordinary-looking Brooklyn apartment

Neil Young, The Hollywood Reporter

People are saying

Antonio Tibaldi’s observational lens let’s us feel the beauty and weight of what we inherit, both blessing and burden.

Uscha Pohl, Very Magazine

People are saying

Thy Father’s Chair is riveting. The very act of throwing things out is both cathartic and sorrowful for these men, and the cameras magnify their pain, shame and panic.

Tim Grierson, Paste

People are saying

Un vrai ”bijou” de finesse et d’humanité; cinéma direct et authentique, une réalisation exceptionnelle qui nous mène aux frontières de l’humain...

Mika Gianotti, membre de ACID

People are saying

There’s a universal human metaphor here, for what’s to be held onto and what’s to be let go

Scott Pfeiffer, Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle

Meet our Team

Frontpage
ANTONIO TIBALDI co-producer, co-director, editor, camera

Antonio has written and directed 5 features films that been presented at festivals such as Berlin, Sundance, San Sebastian, Rotterdam, and released by companies such as Miramax, Warner Bros., and Lion’s Gate. As a documentarian he collaborates with UNTV (United Nations TV) shedding light on under-reported realities in South and Central America, Africa, and Asia. Documentary credits include award winning `{`S`}`COMPARSE and GODKA CIRKA, which he co-directed with Alex Lora. His projects have received support from various organizations, including IFP (Independent Filmmaker Project), TFI (Tribeca Film Institute), FIND (Film Independent), WEMW (When East Meets West, and DokIncubator. As a Fulbright scholar he received an MFA in Film & Video at Calarts. He is the co- director of the MFA program in Film at City College of New York.

Frontpage
Alex Lora co-director, editor

Winner of a New York Emmy, finalist for the Oscars-Student Academy Awards, and winner of a Gaudi Catalan Academy Award after being nominated on three occasions, Alex Lora is a Spanish filmmaker based in New York City who has screened twice at Sundance Film Festival as Official Selection. Listed as one of the top 10 promising Spanish directors to watch for in Variety's Cannes Edition of 2014, his work has received over 100 awards, being officially selected in some of the most internationally-acclaimed film festivals. Alex has also participated at Berlinale's Talent Campus and three times at Cannes Short Film Corner. He has taught film at several prestigious universities and received his MFA in Media Arts Production at City College of New York as a Fulbright scholar, mentored by Antonio Tibaldi and Chantal Akerman.

Frontpage
Enrica Capra producer

Founder and CEO of GraffitiDoc, a Turin based company, Enrica Capra produces documentaries for the international market, both for TV and theatrical release. Films she has produced have been selected at festivals such as Trieste, Festival dei Popoli, Bellaria, IDFA, Thessaloniki, LisbonDocs, DocAviv, True/False, NYC DOC. In recent years Enrica has started producing fiction films (‘Alien Food’, by Giorgio Cugno, awarded at the TorinoFilmLab). With a background in literature and history and professional experience in theatre, Enrica started out as a manager in the publishing sector. She graduated at EAVE Producers Workshop in 2011 and served as vice president of Doc/it (Italian association of documentarians) in 2011-2013. Enrica is a current member of EDN and EWA.

Frontpage
Valerie Delpierre associate producer

After obtaining a degree in International Management (Sorbonne, Paris, 1994), Valérie Delpierre started her professional career in Madrid as production assistant in films and TV. Subsequently, she went on to the area of Project Development and Coordination for different Spanish broadcasters. After acquiring experience in various aspects of the production process, she managed the production of feature films for Eddie Saeta and Doble Banda. In 2006 Valérie created Inicia Films, a production company that aims to develop projects focused in international co-productions and the development of new talent. Recently Valerie participated to Berlin talent in 2016, she is currently the President of Prodocs, the association of the Catalan Producers of documentaries.

Frontpage
Yael Bitton story consultant

Yael Bitton has been making films for over 20 years as an editor, director, tutor and script supervisor. As editor recent credits include: Machines by Rahul Jain, The Wonderful Kingdom of Papa Alaev by Noam Pinchas & Tal Barda, Muchachas by Juliana Fanjul. She was a story consultant on Thy Father's Chair and Kakuma, the Invisible City by Lieven Corthouts. She was script supervisor on Lisbon Story by Wim Wenders, Girlfight by Karyn Kusama, Hamlet by Michael Almereyda. She directed two documentaries, Not for sale, The Rabbi's 12 children. She works as an editing tutor at Dokincubator, and at HEAD / Cinéma du Réel. She received a Master in filmmaking from INSAS in Brussels. She currently lives in Paris with her little girl.

Frontpage
Lucas Ariel Vallejos sound designer

Lucas Ariel Vallejos is a musician, sound designer and electronic engineer based in Barcelona. As a composer, he worked on the documentary GOOGLE AND THE WORLDBRAIN (Ben Lewis, Sundance ’13), and INTERFERENCIAS (Pablo Zareceansky). For TV he has done the sound design for he animation series THE LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND (Wuji House) broadcasted in Catalan TV, and sound design and music composition for the documentary series ADAPTATION, RETRATS, and MIRALLS DE DONES, broadcasted in the Catalan TV Network (XTVL). His work includes sound design for theater. He has been awarded with the Best Sound Design Butaca Award 2015 for the play TERRA BAIXA. He also created the sound design for radio broadcasts. As a bassist he made two records with the band Groovecrew.

Frontpage
Rodrigo Brandão Publicist

Rodrigo Brandão studied Film and Art History at Ithaca College and has over 15 years of experience in the art house, film distribution business. He handled the marketing and PR campaign for the Academy Award-nominated documentary 5 BROKEN CAMERAS and several other award-winning documentaries. He taught workshops on film marketing and distribution for the Tribeca Film Institute in São Paulo, the Brazilian Film Festival in Miami, and the Finger Lakes Film Festival, among others. Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Brandão now lives in Queens, NY.

Frontpage
Vanesa Levine Executive Producer

Vanesa is a Digital Strategist with a background in Digital Media and a strong passion for the creative arts. Her work includes photography, videography and film production. Levine began her career working with modeling agencies all over the world photographing their models. She has lent her expertise filming the behind the scenes video for Bravo TV’s hit series Blood Sweat and Heals. Currently, Vanesa is attending Harvard University and pursuing a Master of Arts in Digital Media Design; where she explores the connection between art and technology.

Frontpage
Toland Samba Associate Producer

Toland grew up in South Africa where he studied and worked as a photographer. In 2015 He moved to New York to study film at the New York Film Academy. There he directed, produced and edited the short “Jocelyn The Muralist” which won the Recognition Award at Hollywood International Documentary Film Festival. The second short doc he produced received an Honorable Mention at the International Independent Film Awards. Prior to pursuing his film career in the US, Toland worked in Cape Town and Johannesburg as a fashion model and as a casting coordinator.

Frontpage
Kolerus / Don Eriksen composers

Bjarke Kolerus (clarinets) almost finished a classical education - but with his raw personal playing style on the clarinet and vast knowledge of the klezmer tradition he seems to have forgotten almost everything they taught him. He is a Clarinet professor at the National Higher Education of Folk Music.

Frontpage
Noriko Sugiura Multimedia design

Noriko is a New York City based filmmaker and multimedia artist. Her aim is to raise awareness and empower subjects such as humanity, culture and environment, using film as a tool. She actively works for NGOs, NPOs and charitable organizations in England, Italy, Japan, India, USA, etc, producing films and multimedia.

Contact Us

New York, NY

INTERNATIONAL SALES: maelle@catndocs.com