Sons of Icarus

I figli di Icaro

Daniel Kemény
Switzerland | 2025 | 90 min
World premiere
Languages : German, Italian, Spanish
Subtitles : English, French

Daniel – the filmmaker – and Samuel are brothers: one is European, the other is Cuban. They share the same father: a man who fled Germany and the collective memory of Nazism, first to Italy, then to Cuba. Together, with the help of cinema and their poetic sensibilities, the three of them will weather stormy family ties and confront a fundamental chapter of life: death.

Daniel, the filmmaker, and Samuel are brothers. One is European, the other Cuban. Their father left West Germany in the 1970s, first for Italy, then Switzerland, and finally Cuba, unable to bear the political climate—the sense that fascism had never truly been confronted—and the corrosive habits of the society he left behind. With a camera in his bag, Daniel sets off for Cuba in search of his family, distant yet familiar. His reunion with Samuel is filled with warm embraces and playful scuffles. However, breaking the ice with their father, who is reserved and averse to displays of affection, proves more difficult. Here, the camera occupies the most intimate of spaces, seeking to grasp what lies beyond our understanding: politics, history, all of those invisible forces and dynamics that can fracture and sever family bonds. Yet it is outside of dialogue that the film finds its most powerful language: a series of freely and joyfully staged tableaux in which Daniel and Samuel come together to give shape to their inner landscapes and the ties that bind them. Gradually, their father also finds his place within these frames. Cinema thus becomes a space to reconnect, where images speak what words cannot.
Mourad-Anis Moussa

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