Music anti-war film performance meant to be a result of reflecting on world affairs in 2022

Produced by Fjodor Elesin. Directed by Aleksandr Tananov.

KADDISH is conceived as a visualized spirit and atmosphere of the 1st movement of the Symphony №21 “Kaddish” written by Miechislav Weinberg – Polish-born Jewish composer. His work is dedicated to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto Holocaust. The composer’s own destiny was tragic: he was the only one from his family who managed to escape alive from the occupied Warsaw Ghetto. He was haunted by survivor syndrome all his life and consumed by an unbearable sense of guilt for being alive while his parents and beloved little sister died in the Trawniki concentration camp.

Miechislav Weinberg was born in Warsaw in 1919. In 1939 he fled to USSR with his family to escape the Wehrmacht. On the way, Miechislav's younger sister Esther got a blister on her foot during the journey and the parents returned to Warsaw to await her recovery before continuing. 19-year-old Miechislav went on to Minsk. Miechislav's family weren’t able to escape the city. They were deported to Lodz Ghetto and later to the Trawniki concentration camp. Miechislav Weinberg would never see his family again...

New Classic@Home’s project called KADDISH is a music film performance meant to be a result of reflecting on world affairs in 2022. This is an anti-war statement, reminding the audience that history repeats itself in cycles. And unfortunately, we are now at that curl of the spiral where events are perceived in a surprisingly inverse way, where black is called white and up is called down. Humanity has already committed this fatal error in the past. And today we have to remember our past and face the truth about our present. KADDISH is supposed to be a short film in the audiovisual genre where historical authenticity and fragmental emotions are found side by side.