“Forgetting Dad”, an award-winning feature documentary, will be screened in the South Pasadena Public Library Community Room on Thursday, June 30th at 7 p.m.  The free program,  presented by the Library and the Friends of the South Pasadena Public Library, will also feature filmmaker Rick Minnich who will introduce his film and conduct a Q & A with the audience.  Minnich is an American filmmaker living in Germany who will be visiting his sister Yasi in South Pasadena. She appears in the film and will be present at the program.

“Forgetting Dad” begins as a forgotten son’s very personal search for his father that winds into a criminal case, before it circles back to personal drama at the end. It starts with the biographies of father and son while showing the family’s home movies and quickly gathers momentum as it gains a thriller structure. The home movies show a happy, ordinary family before we learn that everything is not as it seems. The father in the movies is alive but he does not remember anything. Or does he?  Rick Minnich’s father has apparently lost his memory after a car accident. But doctors cannot find anything wrong with him and the members of the family are not convinced he has amnesia either. They think that his memory loss might be an act of will.

In their grippingly personal documentary Minnick and Co-Writer and Co-Director Matt Sweetwood, imbue their film with a strong sense of structure and an abundance of suspense. The notion of the possibility of escaping one’s own life runs throughout the film and helps make the theme both touching and thrilling.

“Forgetting Dad” has already been shown on television in many countries including Brazil, Canada, Sweden, and India and has won major awards at many international film festivals. The jury statement from the 2009 Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival in China proclaimed “The director takes a step-by-step way to tell a story which is closely related to every one of us...The film is warm and thought-provoking.”

The Library Community Room is located at 1115 El Centro Street. No tickets or reservations are necessary. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. and refreshments will be provided.