OVERVIEW
The
Songs They Sang has taken four years to complete and involves a
feature documentary and a 27 track CD.
The documentary is an Australian independent production and its duration
is 94 minutes. It was filmed in five countries by director Rohan Spong
and these include Israel, France, Lithuania and America. The Songs
They Sang was produced by Anna Monea and Amadeo Marquez-Perez.
The Songs They Sang CD contains 12 songs written in the Vilna
Ghetto, Lithuania during the Holocaust, 10 of which were arranged/recomposed
by Australian composer Joseph Giovinazzo. In addition to the songs,
Joseph also wrote 13 original compositions.
The majority of the tracks were performed by the following Australian
musicians: Deborah Kayser (soprano), Michael Kieran Harvey (piano),
Caerwen Martin (cello) and Aaron Barnden (violin).
SYNOPSIS
The Songs They Sang is the true story of the performances, which
took place inside the Vilna
ghetto, Lithuania, during World War 11. These performances
brought hope to the Jewish people during the horror of the Holocaust.
The film centers on Avrom
Sutzkever and Shmerke
Kaczerginski, who wrote startling and poetic accounts of
Vilna, some of which were set to music and performed in the ghetto.
Survivors recall these songs and how the performances provided critical
hours of “forgetfulness.”
Survivors provide eyewitness accounts of the events on June 1941 when
the German soldiers first invaded Vilna and terror engulfed its citizens.
Within days the persecutions began and from an estimated Jewish population
of 80,000 about 35,000 were murdered in the Ponar Forest nearby. Those
remaining were forced into what became known as the Vilna ghetto.
During the nearly two years of its existence, starvation, disease, mass
executions at Ponar and deportations to concentration camps reduced
the ghetto’s population from an estimated 40,000 people to a few
hundred. The documentary also considers the various people preserving
the musical legacies: A young Jewish community leader who struggles
to retain the culture and history of his forebears in Lithuania today
and a number of people who have a connection to these evocative songs.
EDUCATION KIT
An Education Kit based on The Songs They Sang documentary and
CD is available as a download. Click
here
THE SONGS THEY SANG DVD (94 minutes)
The Songs They Sang DVD is available at:
http://www.thesongstheysang.com/store.html
