L’homme sur son île

German director Percy Adlon (Bagdad Café) filmed this intimate portrait of Tomi Ungerer on the artist’s farm in West Cork, thirteen years ago. Tomi Ungerer and Percy Adlon went back a long way, their paths constantly crossing in New York, Canada, Strasbourg and Ireland. The wealth of archival material that Percy Adlon has collected over decades allows us to look through ‘windows’ onto Tomi’s long career and oeuvre, from posters against racism and caricatures criticizing consumerism to ironic drawings about Franco-German Friendship or erotic machines. This is a subtle documentary about a singularly observant artist who knew exactly how to pinpoint the mechanics of desire or the feeling of being under attack.