Burning Memories

In Burning Memories, veteran filmmaker Alice Schmid comes to terms with being a victim of sexual abuse at the age of 16, an event that she has managed to erase entirely from her memory until recently. Now, fifty years later, the repressed experience has made its way back into her consciousness. Lundby asks herself how it’ s possible to suppress an incident for a lifetime while at the same time spending a career making films and writing books about children and violence. As she wanders through the South African desert looking for answers, the film takes on a universal resonance that transcends its diaristic format. Made with a wry sense of cinematic humour despite its dark subject matter, Burning Memories is an affecting and deeply personal exploration of trauma and the ways in which it infuses into all aspects of a person’s life.