5 Questions for 'Forgetting Dad' Creator Rick Minnich

If your father no longer remembers you, does he stop being your father? 

That's the question Rich Minnich ponders in his latest documentary Forgetting Dad, . at the .

The film follows Minnich as he uncovers facts about his father's amnesia. Ultimately, he wonders if the illness could be fabricated. 

Here's a look into the film from Minnich's point of view. 

Can you briefly explain how/when your father's amnesia began?

My father's amnesia began one week after his car was rear-ended while he was turning into a shopping center in Sacramento in May 1990. After the collision, he seemed to be OK, but according to the accident diary he was keeping, and which surfaced during the making of Forgetting Dad, this wasn't the case.

There he writes about extreme pain and difficulties remembering even the simplest tasks such as operating a microwave oven—all during the first few days after the accident. But it wasn't until one week later that he awoke with total amnesia.

What was it like to see your father this weekend after years of him ignoring you?

I saw my father last weekend at the memorial service for his mother in Cambria. It was our first visit in four years. His health is rapidly deteriorating. For the first time, he spoke openly about it to us children.

My sisters and I met with him for about two hours, and I got to speak to him the next day for over an hour. The topic of his health was sad, yet there was an atmosphere of peace about the whole thing. He vows to fight the good fight, even though it is clearly a losing battle.

I was tremendously relieved that he was willing to discuss all this, and that much of his anger and resentment toward me (because of the film) seems to have abated. He was open to hearing things about his past and to the notion that things that happened during "Old Richard's" life could have had an influence on his amnesia and still be affecting his health today.

Whenever I tried making such suggestions in the past, he reacted with extreme anger. But now he spoke of wanting to collaborate on trying to find a cure to his illness. He shows many symptoms of ALS, but he says the tests for this so far have all come out negative. 

My father has not seen Forgetting Dad, nor has he looked at our website or anything about the film online. He said he wants to see it but is not ready to yet. The effects of the film have trickled down even into his small town in Oregon.

He said one local who had always been friendly to him—whenever they met at the supermarket—now treats him with suspicion. This person saw my last film, Homemade Hillbilly Jam, when it played at the local movie theater there six years ago, and has seen my website.

My father assumes he has now either read about Forgetting Dad or seen it and now thinks badly of him. My father had always been adamant about not wanting anyone in his town to know about his past, but apparently, through the film, it has caught up with him, and he is now having to face the reality of the situation. 

I know you've been touring with the film. Have people around the country reacted to it differently?

In general, audiences leave the theater with the same kind of ambivalence I've felt for the past 21 years. That was my hope in making the film—to give audiences the feeling of being a member of my family even if for only 84 minutes. 

What is one misconception the general public has with amnesia?

One of the most common misconceptions about amnesia is that your mind is wiped completely clean. This is not true. There are different kinds of amnesia, which result from damage to different areas of the brain.

Then there is psychogenic amnesia, which generally results from major personal trauma. This is often seen in accident victims and soldiers who are unable to cope with what they have gone through. The analogy of the brain being like a hard drive that is suddenly erased in amnesia is not correct. Random fragments often remain. These are generally memories with strong emotions attached.

In my father's case, he still remembered a few things from before his accident, and may remember more that he is not revealing. One of the medical evaluations we discovered revealed that in 1991 he thought Kennedy was president. When the psychiatrist who was examining him told him that President Kennedy had been assassinated, my father cried. Apparently the collective trauma of Kennedy's assassination when my father was in high school was so strong that it did not disappear, and even elicited an intense emotional response.

Why should people come out and see the film tonight?

People should come see Forgetting Dad because it's an intensely emotional and dramatic detective story, which is both deeply personal yet very universal. We all have families and our own various traumas, and the film enables viewers to reflect upon their own family situations specifically their relationships to their fathers from a much different vantage point. Plus, the story of my father's amnesia is so bizarre that it also makes for good entertainment.

For more information, visit the film's website, Facebook page or email Minnich directly at info@rickfilms.de. Click on the video to the right to view the trailer.