The Ancient Law
Wed, November 6th, 2024
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
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The Ancient Law: A silent film with live music by violinist Alicia Svigals and pianist Donald Sosin.
Ewald André Dupont’s 1923 silent film The Ancient Law (Das alte Gesetz) is an important piece of German-Jewish cinematic history, contrasting the closed world of an Eastern European shtetl with the liberal mores of 1860s Vienna. With its historically authentic set design and ensemble of prominent actors, The Ancient Law is an outstanding example of the creativity of Jewish filmmakers in 1920s Germany. Beautifully restored by Deutsche Kinemathek.
Alicia Svigals is the world’s leading klezmer fiddler and a founder of the Grammy-winning Klezmatics. She has performed with and written for violinist Itzhak Perlman, and has worked with the the Kronos Quartet, playwrights Tony Kushner and Eve Ensler, poet Allen Ginsburg, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, Debbie Friedman and Chava Albershteyn. Svigals was awarded a Foundation for Jewish Culture commission for her original score to the 1918 film The Yellow Ticket, and is a MacDowell fellow.
Donald Sosin (“the top of the line of film pianists”— Leonard Maltin, critic/author) has performed his scores for silent films, often with his wife, singer/percussionist Joanna Seaton, at Lincoln Center, MoMA, the National Gallery, and major film festivals in New York, San Francisco, Telluride, Hollywood, Pordenone, Bologna, Shanghai, Bangkok, Berlin, Stockholm,Vienna, Moscow, and Jecheon, South Korea. He records for Criterion, Kino, Milestone and Flicker Alley, and his scores are heard frequently on TCM. Sosin has had commissions from MoMA, the Chicago Symphony Chorus, the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.
Sponsored by the Program in Jewish Studies. Funding support provided by the Sundrise Foundation for Education and the Arts. 135 mins
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