Giraffes Don't Do It Any Differently
a film about fathers and family

SOLOTHURNER FILMTAGE January 28 and 31, 2018

THEATRICAL RELEASE IN ZURICH AND BASEL : 2. NOVEMBER 2017

More than 300 letters sent from Africa surface unexpectedly, and a story comes back to life after more than sixty years of oblivion. The challenge: How to deal with such a narrative after so many years? The author decides to pursue the long-since deceased letter writer in Africa and get a picture of the one whose image had completely faded: his father, who, when the author was six years old, had left him in the lurch.
Following the course of the letters, the author travels with his father on a long journey from Zambia to Namibia and lets himself to be moved by him and his story.
As a first-person narrator, he projects his own image, his own narrative of the story of a father, who is hardly remembered anymore – as the parable of "where do I come from, who am I?" During the film he passes this story on to his adoptive daughter, whose roots go back to Africa – just like those of his father, who was born as the son of a missionary.

Walo Deuber was an award-winning filmmaker of fiction and documentaries.
He lived near Zurich, worked as writer/director and teached dramaturgy and literature&film at the Art&Design College of the University of Applied Sciences, Lucerne, Switzerland. He taught at HFF Potsdam Babelsberg. From 1992 to 1996, Walo Deuber was the head-producer of a leading weekly TV-Program on cinema in Switzerland. He had a doctor's degree from the Zurich University in German Literature, History and Philosophy and had been teaching as a visiting professor in the German program and the film department at California State University, Long Beach, USA, from 2001 to 2007. Walo Deuber passed away in Spring 2017.

Filmography
2017, GIRAFFES DON'T DO IT ANY DIFFERENTLY, documentary, 80’
2011, URSULA – LIVING ELSEWHERE, documentary, research and script, 86’            
2009, MOJSCHELE MEIN FREJND – A CHOIR’S JOURNEY TO THE UKRAINE, documentary, 60’
2006, ER, DER HUT, SITZT AUF IHM, DEM KOPF, visual book, 51’
2005, RICORDARE ANNA, fiction, 96’ (award: Förderpreis Stadt und Kanton Zürich) 
2000, MELANCOLIA AMERICANA (Jürg Federspiel), documentary, 40’
2000, DER EINKEHRER (Peter Bichsel), documentary, 50’
2000, DER HEIMKEHRER (Hugo Loetscher), documentary , 38’ (all for CSULB)
1999, JÜDISCH LEBEN IN DER SCHWEIZ, documentary, 38’
1998, FADING TRACES, documentary, 80’ (award: Filmpreis Stadt Zürich)
1994, XAVIER KOLLER – OUR MAN IN HOLLYWOOD, documentary, 26’
1990, JESUITS IN EL SALVADOR, TV-reportage, 10’
1988, KLASSEZÄMEKUNFT, (with Peter Stierlin) fiction, 90’
1986, VIDEOPOLY, (with Peter Stierlin) fiction, 80’
1985, DER SCHWARZE TANNER, fiction, screen play, 110’
1982, DAS KUCKUCKSNEST, fiction, screen play, 60’
1981, DIE REDAKTION, fiction, screen play, 60’

80 min.

Language:
Swiss German, German, English

Subtitles:
German or English

Production:
Doc Productions GmbH, Zürich/CH