I HAVE JUST DIRECTED A FILM which has inadvertently become the most personal that I’ve made by far. What was to have been a glowing tribute to the greatest of all classical composers took a violent turn that has affected me and all of my family in a terrible and terrifying way.
In late December 2022, I was approached by a long-time colleague at ARTE/ZDF about the possibility of making a film on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the work’s premiere in May 2024.
Having already made a film about Beethoven some years ago, the idea left me somewhat cold, but I decided to delve into the subject a bit to see if it stirred my creative passions. I read a recent book dedicated exclusively to the Ninth by my friend Harvey Sachs and, though moved by Beethoven’s Enlightenment-fuelled intentions, I was not convinced. So, I told the commissioner, “Thank you, but no thank you,” and escaped on an extended trip to forget the whole thing. Then, during an earlymorning excursion in the mountains of the Palm Springs desert, one of those unsolicited and cursed epiphanies seized me. I thought to myself, “What if the newly formed Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra (UFO) were to perform that work for the film?” Both the orchestra and Beethoven’s symphony grew out of the same Enlightenment ideas of freedom, peace, tolerance, universal brotherhood, progress, rationality, and humanism—all qualities it seems we can only dream about these turbulent days. I got up the nerve to email the orchestra’s Canadian–Ukrainian founder
