Product Details

• Actors: John Johansen, David Mesa, Ralph Mursinna, Michael Rendler, Joanne Small-Eggert
• Directors: Lucia Small
• Writers: Lucia Small
• Producers: Lucia Small, Alissa Harris, Craig Bouchard, Linda Morgenstern
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: New Yorker Video
• DVD Release Date: April 10, 2007
• Run Time: 84 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000MTEFQ4
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #119,262 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "My Father, The Genius" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

-Peter Keough, The Boston Phoenix

"Brilliant!...

A real-life The Royal Tenenbaums."

Product Description

When estranged father, dreamer, and visionary architect Glen Howard Small bequeaths his daughter the task of writing his biography, she answers instead with a provocative film about his precarious career and thorny private life. At 31, Glen Small, founder and faculty member of the internationally acclaimed Southern California Institute of Architecture, was a rising star. At 61, he can barely pay his bills.

In the tradition of My Architect and The Royal Tenenbaums, filmmaker Lucia Small digs deep to explore the delicate tension between her father's obligations to family and his life-long passion to "save the world through architecture."

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my Favorite Documentaries, April 10, 2007

By	RecDep (Fort Worth, TX United States) - See all my reviews

I originally saw this documentary on the Sundance Channel. As a documentary, it works on two levels. It tells the story of an essentially unknown, but important, architect, whose work influenced a generation of young LA architects. It is also a poignant story of a complex father-daughter relationship, one that is made even more complex by the flights of a stubborn, idealist father who remains true to his lifelong creative obsession. Highly recommended.

5.0 out of 5 stars Documentary Goes Beyond the Ordinary Style, March 27, 2007

By	momofngandag (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews

This documentary film is truly a work of art. Unlike many documentaries that simply turn the camera on an interesting subject, Lucia Small works magic to bring creativity and personal interest to her story both in front of and behind the scenes to make the subject and this film so engaging. Telling the story of her father, she interweaves critique, engagement, surprise, frustration, and a sense of wonder at her father's continuing belief in himself as the true artist who has simply been misunderstood. Any daughter of any father growing up in the seventies will appreciate this!

5.0 out of 5 stars My Father the Genius is a superlative documentary, March 9, 2007

By	James L. Cooper (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A five-star rating for this outstanding documentary which poignantly examines the issues involved in balancing career aspirations with raising a family. A daughter, as only she can, tells the story of her father - an uncompromising, visionary, architect - who was so preoccupied with his role in changing the world through architecture that in the process compromised his role as a father. With feeling, honesty and humor, Lucia Small creatively weaves the needs and wishes of herself and her siblings with that of a father engrossed in a life long push toward architectural excellence. Despite his detachment as a father and his sometimes irascible, opinionated demeanor as an architect, one can't help but admire his immense talent, his let-it-all-hang-out honesty, and his disdain for mediocrity and shallowness. A beautifully constructed documentary which will strike you at all levels of feeling.