Award-winning documentary about a Bavarian father’s hidden life

The German Film Office is pleased to present a special in-person screening of Uli Decker’s award-winning documentary ANIMA – My Father’s Dresses. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the director, moderated by Christophe Koné, Associate Professor of German at Williams College. Please register to attend. Register As her father lay dying, director Uli Decker was presented with surprising information about him: Though a devout Catholic and seemingly typical Bavarian man, he cultivated a habit of wearing women’s clothing throughout his life. Decker was not as shocked by the revelation as she was disappointed that her father had never shared his secret with her. With her own biography marked by the rejection of the heteronormative order—as a child Decker always aspired to adventures that seemed reserved for boys, and even dreamed of becoming the Pope—, she set out to discover her father’s hidden story and to explore how it related to her own experience.

The resulting film is tender and personal, incorporating interviews with Decker’s mother and sister while also commenting on the harshness of moral and social conventions. Decker assembles increasingly wild collages from her father’s possessions, old commercials, and news reports, illustrating the limited possibilities that go along with traditional gender roles. The questions, conjectures, and fantasies that emerge in this film are a love letter to her father and offer a new lens into family life.

“With light and humor, [Decker] shows how varied sexual identity can be […] and thus helps find a way out of the black-and-white thinking that defined her father’s world.” (EPD Film)

ANIMA – My Father’s Dresses won Best Documentary at the Bavarian Film Awards, the Max Ophüls Film Festival, and Achtung Berlin, among others.

ANIMA – My Father’s Dresses
Dir. Uli Decker
Germany, 2022
94 min.

Uli Decker grew up in Bavaria and spent a year living in the Amazon rainforest before studying at King’s College London, Humboldt Universität Berlin, and Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She worked as a freelance journalist, actress, and assistant director and went on to earn a master’s degree in creative documentary from Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. Decker has made several documentary shorts since 2009. Anima – My Father’s Dresses is her first feature-length documentary.