Silent film with live score

Alicia Svigals violin
Donald Sosin piano

Director: E. A. Dupont
Year: 1923
Country: Germany
Length: 135 mins

Alicia Svigals is the world’s leading klezmer violinist and a founder of the Grammy-winning Klezmatics, and pianist Donald Sosin is one of the world’s foremost silent film accompanists. Together, they have been bringing audiences to their feet across Europe and America with their Klezmer-infused silent film scores.

They will perform their score for the 1923 Weimar-era classic, The Ancient Law. In an 1860s Galician shtetl, the teenage son of the community’s rabbi disobeys his father and leaves home to become a Shakespearean actor in Vienna. As delighted as he is by the world of theatre and his success in it, he also longs for home and a way to reconcile his religious heritage with his love of secular literature.

Directed by E.A. Dupont in exquisite visual style that evokes Rembrandt, The Ancient Law is an outstanding example of the creativity of Jewish filmmakers in 1920s Germany.