Karma Shadub

Two years after screening Eine ruhige Jacke and winning two special mentions at Visions du Réel, Ramòn Giger returns to Nyon as co-director of this very personal film. Karma-Shadub, which means “dancing star” in Tibetan, is one of Ramòn Giger’s four first names, as well as the title of a piece composed at his birth by his father Paul Giger, a world-famous violinist. When Paul asks Ramòn to make a film about the adaptation of the piece he wants to make for public performance, the latter endeavours, through this project, to untangle their difficult relationship – closely linked to the separation of his parents and the subsequent departure of his father. Opening with a conversation that reveals the extent of the misunderstanding between the two men, this film draws a sensitive portrait, brimming with emotion. Fragments of memory and fights and a pursuit of the self, universal, are carried along by music and graceful images. The approach of the première sees a painful confrontation take place; this perhaps provides the momentum necessary for Ramòn to change his perception both of his father and himself.

Emilie Bujès