TATA HAIDI – LA MAISON EST UN SENTIMENT

Tata Haidi’s trademark is her dyed-red hair. Sophie Weiss casts her gaze on her grandmother with considerable affection, showing her dancing and eating couscous, her favourite dish. This documentary portrait, which is also Weiss’s bachelor thesis at the Hochschule RheinMain, gives an account of Heidemarie’s transformation into Haidi, her love for a man from Algeria, their three daughters and a life now slowly beginning to dissolve. Between old photo albums, keepsakes and footage of Haidi’s flat, which she now has to leave due to her advancing dementia, Weiss finds space to reflect on transience and to preserve it at the same time. A poem by Jacques Prévert recited by Haidi’s daughter Miriam pins down one of this woman from Kelsterbach’s intrinsic desires: freedom.

Carolin Weidner

Sophie Weiss