After our succes with the screening of the documentary film The Art of the Symphony in Amsterdam at De Balie in April this year, there was a next screening of the documentary in The Hague at the House of Europe on 16 September. Organized by Blinibioscoop, we could show our film, with panel discussion and exhibition of paintings, during an afternoon related to Russia and the post-Soviet States, interestingly this time in the context of the EU.
Line-up of deputies of the embassies of Belarus, Azerbaijan, the organizers of Blinibioscoop Grigori Pasternak and Olga Sterenshis, panelspeakers Olga de Kort and Tony van der Togt, Maryleen Schiltkamp and ladies from the Russia House …
‘The Art of the Symphony’ – documentary film (2017)
Synopsis:
Filmed in Prague, ‘The Art of the Symphony’ takes us from a studio where live paintings of Shostakovich symphonies are created, to archive footage of Prague during the Communist era and to present-day sites of former Communist monuments. Through these images, the main theme of the film – freedom from oppression – is related through a humanitarian, rather than political standpoint where; the individual, the human soul, strives to rise above this agony. Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony is at the heart of these notions.
Produced by the DSCH Journal aļ¬liate DSCH Films, written & directed by Alan Mercer.
Live-paintings by Maryleen Schiltkamp
With panelspeakers Olga de Kort (Musicologist and music journalist) and Tony van der Togt (Associate fellow at Clingendael Institute, The Hague); discussion was moderated by Maryleen Schiltkamp
Panel introduction
Shostakovich Symphony No.10 – oil on canvas painting, 200 x 100 cm, 2016
The exhibition at the House of Europe on 16 September 2019