NR | 128 min | New Restoration
With Support of the Sunrise Foundation
With live original music composed and performed by world-renowned klezmer violinist Alicia Svigals and celebrated silent film pianist Donald Sosin
Composer and pianist Donald Sosin is one of the world’s foremost silent film accompanists, and Alicia Svigals is the world’s leading klezmer fiddler and a founder of the Klezmatics. They will perform their score for the recently restored 1923 Weimar-era classic The Ancient Law, about a rabbi’s son who leaves the shtetl to become an actor in Vienna. (The story is reminiscent of Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer, which was made four years later.) With its exquisite visual style that evokes Rembrandt, it is an outstanding example of the creativity of Jewish filmmakers in 1920s Germany. It was directed by E. A. DuPont (Variety, Piccadilly).
Director: Ewald André Dupont
Writers: Heinrich Laube (memoirs), Paul Reno
Composers: Donald Sosin, Alicia Svigals
Cinematographer: Theodor Sparkuhl
Production Designers: Alfred Junge, Kurt Kahle
BFC JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL SPONSORED BY EDWIN & DORIS COHEN
Featuring live original music composed and performed by world-renowned klezmer violinist Alicia Svigals and celebrated silent film pianist Donald Sosin