The Healing Power of Music
May 1, 2012Our guest blogger this month is Lori Miller, Producer of They Came to Play. In this post she shares her observations about the importance of music in people’s lives, based on her experiences shooting this wonderful film. Enjoy!
I began reading about the Van Cliburn Amateur Piano Competition in the 1990s in the New York Times. I was utterly fascinated by the range of backgrounds and professions that these so-called amateurs chose as their “day jobs” including doctor, lawyer, homemaker, jeweler, tennis coach, glass repairman, flight attendant, and dental assistant. Many took decades off from their music while working, training for their professions or raising their families, but their love of music would eventually lead them back to their pianos and they would continue to practice, play, and perform for hours each day.
Over a decade after first hearing about the competition and while filming in collaboration with Romanian-born amateur pianist and director Alex Rotaru, the reasons these amateurs played became more clear. Their love of music gave their lives a higher and sometimes spiritual purpose and the strength to overcome highly difficult situations. From political refugee to sober drug addict to AIDs and cancer survivors and people dealing with heartbreak or depression, many of the amateurs credited their music as the single healing factor that helped them survive these challenges. In a few cases, playing piano was actually a life-saver.
The making of the film was inspired by my own grandmother, a holocaust survivor, who was able to return to her piano playing in her Seventies as an amateur. She lived until 103 and also believed her playing contributed greatly to her long and happy life.
Even though the film won several festival awards, regularly played to standing ovations and finally was named a New York Times Critics Pick, commercial distributors shied from the film because of its subject matter: classical music and people over the age of 35! Luckily we were able to persevere and have found wonderful distributors, including Tony Alosi from Dark Hollow Films, who are championing the film.
I hope you and your students and communities have the opportunity to enter the world of these lovable, insightful, inspiring, and talented amateurs and I would love to hear how you enjoy the film.
Lori Miller, Producer
Los Angeles, 2012
A Special Place with an Uncertain Future
April 1, 2012All of us at Dark Hollow Films are very excited to announce that Trinity and Beyond will be playing for two nights at The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema in Toronto; a shout out to our friends at Hot Docs for putting this together. Also, a special thanks to educators and collections for the warm reception received for the Veverka brothers’ film, Malana: Globalization of a Himalayan Village.
Last month we released for the first time Linn Harter’s feature documentary, Here Lies My Heart. As you know, we ask many of our filmmakers to write a guest blog for our homepage. This month, Linn shares her experience on the making of Here Lies My Heart. Enjoy! Continue reading…
Disappearing Cultures
March 4, 2012 Congratulations to Michael McNamara and everyone at Markham Street Films! Their film, Acquainted with the Night, which we proudly represent for educational distribution in the United States, just won the International Spirit Award at the Sedona Film Festival.We also are pleased to announce that, beginning this week, we are now offering Here Lies My Heart, an extraordinary documentary that captures the unique way of life of a small fishing village on El Pardito Island in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. The families who live in the village have chosen it for its tranquility and simplicity, but powerful forces threaten to destroy their traditions and livelihood.
Winter Arts & Visions News
February 5, 2012 This month we are excited to to release Malana: Globalization of a Himalayan Village. The film chronicles how the forces of globalization are slowly bringing change to a small isolated village grounded in tradition. The film was produced and directed by Jesse and Jeremy Veverka, both graduates of Cornell University. Jesse Veverka currently resides in Yokohama, Japan where he continues to work as a filmmaker and writer. Jeremy Veverka is a photojournalist and a talented music composer whose original compositions include the original scores for Malana: Globalization of a Himalayan Village, and the brothers’ feature-length documentary film, China: The Rebirth of an Empire.Continue reading…
Roots of the Tree
January 9, 2012 A few years ago, I began the research and development on a project that had begun as a screenplay idea but eventually became the documentary, “Eastern State: Living Behind the Walls.” I had been reading constantly about the troubled prison system in the state of California as well as the nation, and I became inspired to produce the film as I struggled to understand why it was is such dire straights. I believed that to understand the current state of our prison system, it was important to look at where it had begun — at one of their earliest attempts at prison reform in the United States.Continue reading…
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