Klaus Armbruster

Louis-Ferdinand Céline described the period he spent in Sigmaringen in his delirious and infernal novel, Castle to Castle, published in 1957. The last months before the German “moment of truth”, as they’ve never been portrayed before: Documented in delirious reality. A documentary film based on Céline’s texts. A screen adaption with documentary material.

My mother lights 80 candles and becomes visible. When I set to work, it turned into an intense confrontation between mother and son. I finally learned the unvarnished story of my mother's life and began to understand why we both became who we are. I interwove the film image with two layers of sound: the Suite in C minor for violoncello, Bach, and dialogical texts spoken by mother and son, based on our conversations and describing how she gave birth to her seven children during the years of Hitler's fascism. I will continue to work on my mother's biography.