母の手紙

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Statement: My German father was a passionate photographer and amateur filmmaker. His mother, widowed during the Second World War, lived in Berlin. As an only child, he moved to Japan in 1958, where he shot dozens of Super 8 reels and took hundreds of photographs. Perhaps he was collecting impressions to share with his mother, who never had the chance to visit Japan. Or perhaps photography was his way of processing a life far from home. The full extent of his archive only came to light after his passing, allowing me to unearth the footage used in this film. Much of it had not been seen for nearly sixty years — not even by my Japanese mother, who appears prominently in the images, yet had no memory of them.

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–––an astounding feat of family-archive excavation (mostly from S8 color!) that is ever-so-meticulously ordered into a profoundly resonant, and revelatory montage. (Craig Baldwin, program notes, Other Cinema)

–––Schedelbauer discovers the rebellious past of her mother as a young woman in conservative postwar Japan who eventually emigrates to Germany. The daughter’s documentation becomes an act of shared defiance against patriarchal gender expectations as well as an act of intergenerational memory-making. (Feng-Mei Heberer, program notes, Asian Diaspora on Screen)

–––Mother’s Letter is the filmmaker’s attempt to approximate her mother’s perspective. In the form of a letter, the mother addresses her daughter, who replies and comments with images from the family archive. The back-and-forth of the classic letter format becomes an intimate side-by-side that hints at conflict and closeness, while leaving room for questions that remain unanswered. (Katrin Mundt, program notes, European Media Art Festival)

–––In her film, the filmmaker paints a poetic narrative of two personal journeys in which mother and daughter reflect each other: a journey of emancipation and migration, and a journey of remembrance. Using archival material, the filmmaker weaves an intimate and multi-layered document about longing, transience, freedom, and reconciliation. (Jury statement by Adrian Figueroa, Amos Ponger, Giovanna Thiery. German Competition, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen)

–––I experienced Mother's Letter in many ways - the exquisite crafting of it, the emotional responses I had with it, the associations I made in my own life through it .. and sensing you and your mother, her dog, her places, your places...the footage, both your father's and yours, hearing your mother's voice and her journey through her letter to you - all these layers so intricately holding so much time. So much time! You have such a gift with this medium it's often breathtaking, Sylvia. (Priya Sen in a personal correspondence)

–––In Mother’s Letter, Sylvia Schedelbauer evokes her mother’s perspective. Drawing from her family archive, the film addresses the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship, often defined by unspoken tensions and unresolved histories. These dynamics are further explored within the context of mixed heritage between Japan and Germany, where differing life experiences shape their connection. These complexities unfold through a delicate interplay of fragmented images, archival material, and evocative soundscapes. Schedelbauer’s distinct formal approach, a meticulous choreography of light, texture, and rhythm, invites the viewer into the layered emotional terrain of their relationship, which, like personal history and cultural identity, is shaped by time and memory. (Christina Stuhlberger, program notes, Courtisane Festival)

––– The direction alternates between archive material and new, almost tactile images: dried flowers, leaves, fragments of forests. The tones shift from sepia black and white to the bright color of green leaves, like a transition between eras and moods. Carl Gustav Jung would have seen in that forest a clear symbol of the collective unconscious: an inner space in which the protagonist confronts her own shadows, traversing memories and family ties. Each leaf becomes a memory, each branch a fragment of herself. A journey within herself. (Veronica Neulichedl, The Archive as Confession, Taxidrivers)

–––The film takes the form of a mother's reply to her daughter's letter. Rich archive material is combined to create a short, intense portrait of a down-to-earth, courageous woman, into which historical panoramas and intimate feelings flow simultaneously. Schedelbauer also cautiously hints at conflicts with her mother's life advice. But above all, her current film is a testimony of appreciation and... love. (Dieter Wieczorek, Silence as a Strategy, j:mag – lifestyle & responsible citizenship)

–––Mother's Letter is actually about several letters in which [Sylvia Schedelbauer's] mother asks her to build stable relationships and circumstances and to return to Berlin from Japan. Combined with old and new Super 8 footage, we learn about her mother's life story and her journey from Tokyo to Berlin. The film received a promotional award [at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen]. (Georg Immich, Transitional Year in Oberhausen, Film & TV Kamera)