In 1825, the French physician Jean Itard described the extraordinary behavior of the Marquise de Dampierre, who at the age of seven began to make remarkable body movements and peculiar sounds, as well as obscene utterances. Half a century later, Dr. Gilles de la Tourette once again studied the Marquise de Dampier’s syndrome, making eight more similar cases known.

“DOCH,” however, is a film. In the summer, in a park beside a lake. In the gray and red Lüneburg Heath in Northern Germany. Who was wasn’t yet there? They all showed up – all the ticks. It is confusingly beautiful to be in a circle in which everybody has one. It is magical when somebody lights up a cigarette and someone else ticks.

And yet, “DOCH” is a story in which a young man “should go into the forest to scream.” Where the other isn’t acting, even unconsciously. What I play is not a play! The lost-seeming gentle woman must break loose to notice that she is living. Look over there! To escape from the gaze. The wind suddenly dies down. It’s quiet. To negate everything for the sake of negating. You nihilist!

Still, “DOCH” is a tick by Erwin Michelberger and Oleg Tcherny. “A compulsion towards precision on the one hand, and towards explosion on the other.” Mom always used to say it: When I’m in love, I tick more. Maybe she was right….

“Doch” is a German word for “but”, “however”, “nevertheless”, “nonetheless”,  “but still”, “yet”, “yes it is”.

Duisburg Film Week – Input Festival Lugano – Shadow Festival – Opening Film at the Amsterdam Film Festival – Lisbon Film Festival – Main program Viennale 2008 – FICCO 2009 6th Mexico International Contemporary Film Festival Competition – Main program BAFICI XI. Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine – Independiente 2009 – Nonfiktionale 2010