Seven Dumpsters and a Corpse

Synopsis

Thomas Haemmerli is about to celebrate his fortieth birthday when he learns of his mother's death. A further shock follows when he and his brother Erik discover her apartment, which is filthy and full to bursting with junk. It takes the brothers an entire month to clean out the place. Among the chaos, they find films going back to the 1930s, photos and other memorabilia.

Two opposing storylines developed out of the film material. On the one hand, there is the struggle against chaos, during which the apartment becomes increasingly empty and clean. On the other hand, there is the story of the family, which becomes increasingly confusing.

The film deals intensively with compulsive hoarding.

Background

Thomas Haemmerli is a Swiss TV journalist. On March 8, 2004, when he received the ominous phone call from Zurich's criminal police department which launched one of the most harrowing weeks of his life, Haemmerli reacted the way he was used to: he took out his camera and started shooting. It came out of 30 hours of DV footage which Haemmerli intended to turn into a short film "which we might be able to show our friends".

Trivia

Young Kofi Annan makes an appearance in the documentary as he had been invited to the wedding of Haemmerli's parents.

Seven Dumpsters and a Corpse obtained a film subsidy of CHF 90'000 (about $75,000 USD) from Zurich's film foundation in 2006.

International release

The first release of Seven Dumpsters and a Corpse outside of Switzerland was at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, April 2007, in Toronto.