Rhythm is it!

RHYTHM IS IT! records the first big educational project of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle. The orchestra ventured out of the ivory tower of high culture into boroughs of low life for the sake of 250 youngsters. They had been strangers to classical music, but after arduous but thrilling preparation they danced to Stravinsky's 'Le Sacre du Printemps' ('The Rite of Spring'). Recorded with a breathtaking fidelity of sound, this film from Thomas Grube and Enrique Sánchez Lansch documents the stages of the Sacre project and offers deep insights into the rehearsals of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

2004-06-12 | en

LIFT

Lift shines a spotlight on the invisible story of homelessness in America through the eyes of a group of young homeless and home-insecure ballet dancers in New York City and the mentor that inspires them.

2023-09-15 | en

Looking for Don Giovanni

In Baden-Baden, Nayo Titzin follows the producers of the opera Don Giovanni, created for the Innsbruck Festival of 2006. He is looking for a musical truth... What if Mozart's masterwork Don Giovanni had been interpreted in a wrong way for more than two centuries? Conductor René Jacobs, famous for his performance of Così fan tutte and laureate of a Grammy Award for his innovative recording of The Marriage of Figaro, comes back with new ideas on the comprehension of one of the greatest operas of all times. In this relevant documentary, Nayo Titzin clarifies and highlights all the brightness of those melodies and recitatives. Rewarded with many praises in the international press, this production shows the dramaturgical perfection of the "opera of the operas," the absolute of the genre, as Wagner once said. Once more, the Bulgarian director offers a fun and subtle report, and makes sure that everyone will understand this myth.

2006-01-01 | en

Anna Netrebko und Rolando Villazón singen "La Traviata"

2020-01-01 | de

The Sound of Identity

In the spotlight of global media coverage, the first transgender woman ever to perform as Don Giovanni in a professional opera, makes her historic debut in one of the reddest states in the U.S.

2020-08-22 | en

Tights Worship: Inside the Practices of The Rita

The film traces Sam McKinlay’s early days as a punk skateboarder through his academic development as a conceptual artist into a highly esteemed noise practitioner whose work bridges the gap between the gallery world and the sleaze of exploitation film imagery. It documents the physical processes of his work and the distillation of visuals into sound, most notably addressing the appeal of abstraction—from the cheap effects of old monster movie makeup to the ‘masks’ created by the heavy cosmetic makeup of 1920s flapper culture and actresses like Pamela Stanford in Jess Franco’s Lorna the Exorcist (The Rita has albums or EPs named after several eurotrash actresses, including The Nylons of Laura Antonelli (2009) and Monica Swinn/Pamela Stanford (2016)).

2019-07-01 | en

Confession of the Vanished

The film follows the staging of the opera Olimpiade while at the same time exploring the dramatic life of its composer Josef Mysliveček, a friend and teacher of W. A. Mozart.

2015-04-02 | cs

Ballet Boys

Ballet Boys takes you through disappointments, victories, forging of friendship, first loves, doubt, faith, growing apart from each other, finding your own way and own ambitions, all mixed with the beautiful expression of ballet.

2014-06-27 | no

Paulette

A short documentary following Paulette Harwood, a 90-year-old former Radio City Music Hall Corps de Ballet soloist, as she teaches the final classes in a school she's run for sixty years.

2021-02-19 | en

Dance for All

2007-09-22 | en

For Art's Sake: The Story of Ballets Russes

In the centenary year since the founding of the Ballets Russe, this documentary looks back at Sergei Diaghilev and the company he created, what they did and the influence they had, even a 100 years later.

2009-12-12 | en

Pavarotti, Birth of a Pop Star

Although he is unanimously credited with having democratised opera, making it accessible to the greatest number, focus is rarely put on the strategy he devised and implemented in order to carry out his actions, nor what his actions reveal of the man and artist, and of the resulting metamorphosis from opera singer to pop artist. Through this angle, this film sets out to pay tribute to the man who summed up his credo, obsession and life’s work, in the following way: “They led the public to believe that classical music belonged to a restricted elite. I was the way to prove to the world that was wrong.

2017-09-06 | fr

Black and White in Colour

A vivid documentary portrait of Véra Bílá (1954-2019), a Gypsy singer acclaimed in the international music world. The film explores Romany culture and what it means to be part of a marginalized minority group. She was dubbed the Ella Fitzgerald of Romani music. The Czech singer enjoyed international success in the late Nineties when she was signed to the German record label BMG.

1999-12-02 | cs

The Triadic Ballet

A film in three parts after Oskar Schlemmer's Triadische Ballett (Triadic Ballet).

1970-04-11 | xx

Nureyev Unzipped

Narrated by Terence Stamp, this TV program documents the life and career of famed ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, through interviews with friends and colleagues and archive footage.

1998-04-13 | en

El canto de las manos

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Patrice Chéreau, Pascal Greggory, une autre solitude

A look at the entire process of creating and developing Patrice Chéreau’s third staging of "In the Solitude of Cotton Fields" by Bernard Marie Koltès with Pascal Greggory and Chéreau himself. From the first reading around the table through the first contact with the performance space, rehearsals and lighting to opening night, the entire creative process unfurls in front of our eyes. The film shows us the evolving and ongoing dialogue between Greggory and Chéreau, a dialogue full of crises and magical moments of harmony and insight via which the truth, intensity, complexity, mystery and depth of Koltès’ text gradually emerge to form an implicit bond between these two men. The film also shows Chéreau directing rehearsals for Mozart’s "Don Giovanni" in Salzburg, revealing both the unity of and profound differences between his opera and theater work.

1996-01-30 | fr

Rêve Kakudji

Serge Kakudji is a twenty-year-old Congolese counter tenor who fell in love with opera as a young boy, listening to audiotapes of opera recordings in his room in Lubumbashi. Later he traveled to Europe to achieve his dream of becoming a top opera singer. Although Serge's artistic ambitions are pure and uncomplicated, the reactions among his environment and audiences are often ambiguous and divided. While some people respect and acknowledge his artistic vocation, others see him as an exotic oddity, or complain that that his African timbre jars with classical opera. Serge refuses to be discouraged by any of this. On the contrary, he wants to hold up a mirror to Western culture and confront it with its underlying beliefs. He also wants to use his story and experiences in the west to bring opera to Congo. Together with his countrymen and women, he wants to found a Congolese opera tradition based on African stories that will inspire people to follow their dreams.

2013-05-09 | en

Рудольф Нуреев. Остров его мечты

2016-01-01 | ru

Dancing Beethoven

A journey through the preparation and hardworking process of ballet dancers and musicians for a unique spectacle in Tokio that Béjart choreographed with the Ninth symphony of Beethoven. Béjart ballet dances with Tokio ballet and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Israel. A marvellous combination of dancers movements and expression of different feelings along the four movements of the symphony with absolute elegance and strength.

2017-04-13 | en