First Cousin Once Removed

Synopsis

Director Alan Berliner documents five years worth of visits with his cousin and mentor, poet and translator Edwin Honig, as he gradually succumbs to the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. Berliner illustrates the fragility of memory and self in an unsentimental yet wholly respectful and loving way, employing archive materials and family members to show us, and sometimes Honig himself, who this lost man used to be.

Director Biography

Alan Berliner, born in New York in 1956, is an American filmmaker. Many of his films have been aired on PBS Public Broadcasting Service programme P.O.V. Most of his films are generally classified as documentaries. Alan Berliner’s uncanny ability to combine experimental cinema, artistic purpose and popular appeal into compelling film essays has made him one of America’s most acclaimed independent filmmakers.