From an early age, Taliya Finkel was told that her uncle Sterik had been a KGB agent. Her father Shmuel was convinced of this. He and his brother immigrated from the Ukraine to Israel in the 1970s. Shmuel preceded Sterik, who was in prison in the Ukraine at the time. According to Shmuel, his brother was murdered in prison and replaced by a secret agent of the former USSR. No one believed Shmuel, and Sterik refused to take a DNA test. In 1999, while his daughter was filming him intensively, Shmuel revealed that he was afraid that his fake brother was going to murder him. A year later, her father was indeed dead. So was he telling the truth? She called in a private detective to investigate. We are also told about Shmuel's illness. In 1987, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. A chronic mental illness whereby the patient is no longer able to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Could this be the heart of the problem? Taliya filmed her search for answers and uses old footage of her father. A doctor, who once treated her father, explains about the disease. The whole thing is done in detective style, with tense music building the atmosphere.
When Taliya was young, she never knew for sure whether her uncle was a KGB agent in disguise or a true member of the family. Her father claimed that his brother had been murdered in a Ukrainian prison and substituted by an imposter from the KGB, forced on the family by the old soviet regime. Her father presented his claims in a way that made his family believe this unlikely story. After the tragic death of the father, the mystery surrounding his stories continued to grow.
Five years after his death, filmmaker Taliya Finkel goes on a fascinating journey in order to unfold the mystery around her departed father. Guided by a private investigator, she travels from Israel to the Ukraine and back in a desperate quest to find proof of her father's story. During the voyage, Taliya investigates the thin line that separates imagination and reality, sanity and madness.
© ImagéSanté. Website: Synthèse.
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