East with Sonia Wieder-Atherton

East with Sonia Wieder-Atherton

  • Overview
  • Cast
  • Crew

Status

Released

Release Date

Mar 8, 2009

Runtime

1h 24m

Genres

Documentary, Music, TV Movie

Original Title

À l'est avec Sonia Wieder-Atherton

Production Companies

AMIP, Chemah I.S., Cléa Productions, ARTE

Director

Chantal Akerman

Description

Presented in 2 parts, this 83 minute piece documents Wieder-Atherton's idea to do a set of pieces from across central and eastern Europe, including Russia. Some weren't originally written for cello, but she had them transcribed. Some were songs for voices, which goes with Wieder-Atherton saying in an earlier film she made with Chantal Akerman that she aspires to play the cello in a way that it carries the specificity of emotion of the human voice. She explains at the beginning of both parts how she feels each country in the region has it's own personality expressed in its music, coming from its individual history and culture, but that each land in the area is also 'impregnated' as she puts it, by the others, so there are certain elements that run throughout.