TORONTO – Israeli filmmaker Taliya Finkel’s award-winning and intriguing documentary thriller, Over My Dad’s Body, takes us deep into the heart of mental illness.

Five years after her father’s tragic death, Finkel embarks on a fascinating and harrowing journey to solve the personal mystery surrounding her departed father’s claims that her uncle is an undercover agent sent to Israel and forced on the family by the old Soviet regime.

When Finkel was young, she was embarrassed by her father’s strange behaviour and prayed that he would be ‘normal.’

From an early age, she heard her father Shmuel tell the family that his brother, Sterik, had been a KGB agent. Shmuel and his brother had immigrated from the Ukraine to Israel in the 1970s, however, Shmuel preceded Sterik, who was in prison in the Ukraine at the time.

According to Shmuel, his brother was murdered in a Ukrainian prison, had his identity stolen and was replaced by a secret agent of the former USSR who was then sent as a substitute to Israel – and to Finkel’s family instead.

No one believed Shmuel and Sterik refused to take a DNA test. For most of Finkel’s life, controversy and questions swirled around whether her uncle was a disguised KGB agent or a true family member.

Even though her father Shmuel was diagnosed, in 1987, with schizophrenia (a chronic mental illness where the patient can’t distinguish between reality and fantasy), he presented his far-fetched claims in such a realistic manner that his family, especially Taliya, believed there might be some validity to the unlikely story. As her father would often say, “Even if I am schizophrenic, it doesn’t mean that what I’m saying isn’t true.”

Over My Dad’s Body is constructed like a detective film, with tense music building the atmosphere. As the mystery surrounding his stories grows, Finkel wonders if her father’s schizophrenia could really be at the heart of the problem. She films her search for answers, using old colour footage of Shmuel showing his humour, chutzpah, clear analytical thinking and his fantastical side. A psychiatrist who once treated her father explains about the disease.

Five years after Shmuel’s death in 2001, Finkel, guided by a private investigator, travels from Israel to the Ukraine and back in a determined quest to find proof to corroborate her father’s strange tale.

In a way, she’s left with more questions than answers. Her journey ultimately becomes one of acceptance as she struggles to confront the difficult memories of shame, guilt and complicated love for her father. During her challenging and riveting journey, Finkel investigates the thin line that separates imagination and reality, sanity and madness.

Taliya Finkel’s Over My Dad’s Body, an Israel/Ukraine production, made in 2008, 70 minutes, in Hebrew, Russian, Ukrainian with English subtitles, will be screened on Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 1 p.m. at the Rendezvous With Madness Film Festival together with the world premiere of A Small Vacation, an Israeli short by Sivan Stavi, Hebrew, 2009, 20 minutes. Ilan is suffering from mental illness. Can he live up to his promises of a normal father-son relationship, even if it’s just for one weekend?

The 17th annual Rendezvous With Madness Film Festival: Cinematic Perspectives of Mental Illness and Addiction, Nov. 5-14, Workman Theatre, 1001 Queen St. W., Workman Arts, 651 Dufferin St.