with director Su Friedrich

In the dazzling, genre-defying Sink or Swim, lesbian feminist director Su Friedrich examines her difficult relationship with her father, an academic linguist who divorced her mother when she was twelve. Divided into twenty-six vignettes, one for each letter of the alphabet, the film paints a vivid portrait of childhood’s end, using an eclectic mixture of autobiography, home movies, nursery rhymes, German lieder, anthropological observation, and classical mythology. Intellectually adventurous yet deeply heartfelt, Sink or Swim explores the collateral damage that occurs when family ties break down.