In the Maze – The Musician Jörg Widmann

In the Maze - The Musician Jörg Widmann

A film by Holger Preuße, 42 / 52min., BR/ARTE 2022

Music takes on a life of its own in the moment of writing, believes Jörg Widmann. It assumes its own form, becoming a living being that forges its own path. As such, it remains a fragment, because it is not what he, the writer, had intended.

For Widmann, the image that best describes this progression is a maze. Today, this has become the theme that runs through his life’s work, one that he has explored musically over the course of six distinct pieces. In the maze, one gets lost and bumps into things. There are moments “where it doesn’t go any further. And that is something that I often experience as problematic and very painful in composing. As happy as composing is.” Increasingly, he is led out of the maze of composing into which he has been drawn by his other role of clarinettist (for many years considered one of the world’s best) by his activities as a conductor.

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We follow Jörg Widmann into his maze, reaching for the thread that runs through his life and work. Together with him, we experience the ups and downs, the euphoric moments as well as the moments of crisis that are brought about by the process of writing. We encounter him backstage and on stage. And we discover that it is in fact a bundle of threads that intertwine to form a tangle, whereby the composer without the clarinettist, the conductor without the composer, or Jörg Widmann without the human, is inconceivable.

The film accompanies Jörg Widmann in the composition of his trumpet concerto “Towards Paradise (Labyrinth VI)”, commissioned by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. We witness the piece take shape, from the first drafts to the premiere performance. As clarinettist and conductor, we see him at the Salzburg Festival, in the Boulez Hall and at the Konzerthaus Berlin, and experience this ‘universal musician’ alongside Daniel Barenboim (as pianist), with the celebrated violinist Anne Sophie Mutter, for whom he composed his String Quartet No. 6, and during a concert tour of Taiwan together with his sister, the violinist Carolin Widmann.

F*ck Berlin

F*ck Berlin

A series by Marie Villetelle, 4x30 min, rbb, 2023

One summer in the sex-positive scene of the capital city: They love several people at the same time, allow others to tie them up or whip them; they pursue wild fantasies or dance near-naked for the first time. Nine denizens of the scene share their experiences and feelings about the nightlife and tell of their sexual emancipation. F*ck Berlin is an intimate voyage of discovery with a female perspective on the subject of sex.

Party how you want to: All bodies, all genders and every manner of play – few cities outside of Berlin offer such freedom. Martina is completely new to the sex-positive scene. In the clubs of the city, she is hoping to find out what she really wants, besides sex in bed with one other person. Maria has a religious background and has recently explored how to reconcile her sexual desires with her faith.

Freeing yourself from conventional ideas through the joyous exploration of your own preferences: Katharina has lived this lifestyle for a long time and is reluctant to put a label on her sexuality. This summer, she is working on coping better with being alone – and falls in love. After breaking from her family, Medusa now feels completely at home in the BDSM scene. She’s keen to pass on her insights and experience to others.

Beyond coupledom: Lisa and Chris live in an open marriage and openly discuss their anxieties and desires. This summer, they want to explore what it’s like when each of them go on their own dates. Nina met the love of her life at the age of 19, but it was always clear that she wanted to continue trying new things. She now has two children with her partner and little has changed in her sex life. They still have their fun, but are more likely to roam the nights alone.

Nothing is 100 percent safe – but “safe” rooms are particularly important for queer people. Elizabeth is a trans woman and Berlin has helped her to feel free for the first time. She is often out and about in the BDSM scene and is discovering new sides of herself. Marque has frequently experienced fetishisation. She’s unsure if she can regain her lightness if certain issues within the sex-positive scene aren’t addressed.

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Music ex machina – Artificial intelligence in classical music

Music ex machina - Artificial intelligence in classical music

A film by Bernard Wedig and Stefan Pannen, 52min, WDR, 2023

Music created with the assistance of artificial intelligence is a well-established secret in the world of pop. Today, AI is also making serious inroads in the classical domain, bringing us to the threshold of a new era in classical music. From the recording of the first samples to the premiere performance at the Semperoper in Dresden, the film accompanies the creation of the opera “Chasing Waterfalls”, which was co-composed by artificial intelligence.

We follow the AI as it reconstructs Beethoven’s 10^th symphony and watch it perform with Robbie Williams, and we see how pianist Dirk Maassen at the Sony Science Lab in Paris and saxophonist Asya Fateyeva at the Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg interact with AI in real time, and how Spanish professor Eduardo Miranda in Plymouth is using quantum computers to create music entirely from scratch.

Experts Kenza Ait Si Abbou and Christian Mio Loclair comment on these fascinating developments as well as the currently highly topical Chat GPT platform.

Sound World – A Year in the Karajan Academy

Klangwütig - Ein Jahr an der Karajan-Akademie

Ein Film von Isabel Hahn und Silvia Palmigiano, 52 min., ZDF/ARTE 2022

available until 20.01.2023 in the ZDF Media Library

Nodoka Okisawa, Sara Ferrández and Lennard Czakaj are 3 out of 30 musicians who have landed a coveted place at the Karajan Academy, the training school associated with the Berlin Philharmonic. This means lessons and concerts with one of the best orchestras in the world. But it also means great expectations and a lot of pressure.

Violist Sara dreams of a solo career and is working on her YouTube channel. She wants to give young people an understanding of classical music. She wants to break taboos – since there are too many conventions in classical music that don’t make sense to her. Trumpeter Lennard does not come from a family of musicians. He got his first trumpet from his parents when he was eight years old. At the time he had a guilty conscience because he knew that the instrument was very expensive. Since then he ha sputs all his eggs in one basket and is hoping for a position in the orchestra. He doesn’t have a plan B. Nodoka is expecting a baby. She is again confronted with something that, in her opinion, has no place in music: A female conductor is not always accepted, especially a pregnant one… But then on the podium she forgets everything – and levitates…

Sisi’s Heirs – The Children of Empress Elisabeth

Sisis Erben – Die Kinder der Kaiserin Elisabeth

Ein Film von Martin Koddenberg, 52 min., ZDF/ARTE 2022

available until 20.01.2023 in the ZDF Media Library

A ‘Loving mother’? The real Empress Elisabeth of Austria is the exact opposite of what the legendary “Sissi” trilogy from the 1950s shows. Throughout her life, the eccentric Sisi put her own interests first. How does she live with her children?

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After her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph I in 1854, Sisi feels the pressure of her relatives: the continuation of the dynasty depends on the young woman. A year later, at the age of 17, she gives birth to her first child, Sophie. But even the birth of the second daughter, Gisela, does not fulfill the expectations for a male successor. When Sophie dies during a trip to Hungary in 1857, deep cracks appear in the parents’ relationship.

Only the birth of the heir to the throne, Rudolf, in 1858 defuses the situation. Sisi then takes off and leaves for two years. Her children grow up without her during this time – when Sisi returns, they do not recognize “the strange woman”.

In 1868, Sisi gives birth to her fourth child, Marie Valerie, in what is now Budapest. This “Hungarian daughter” is smothered with love and affection by her mother. When she emancipates herself, she marries into the “scandalous line” of the Habsburgs, expresses herself in a German-national way. Nevertheless, with her nine children and numerous grandchildren, she ensures that the family is still widely branched out today.

Sisi was only just able to prevent Emperor Franz Joseph from raising the heir to the throne to become a strict soldier. From then on, the emperor keeps him away from all decisions. Rudolf takes refuge in a world of drugs and alcohol excesses. He kills himself and his mistress. Sisi is caught off guard: the empress has turned away more and more from her family. She lives in her own world, which consists mostly of traveling, horseback riding and writing poetry. Meanwhile, Emperor Franz Joseph worries about his fatherless granddaughter Elisabeth-Marie, known as “Erszi”. She becomes a rebel at the Viennese court. After the fall of the empire, she begins a new life in SPÖ circles and marries a representative of the Viennese working class.