By STEVE MARTINDALE
For SS Film Festival Society
The Salt Spring Film Festival’s annual “Best of the Fests” series begins with a remarkably powerful film about how people around the world continue to be deeply inspired by Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, featuring a live performance of Ode to Joy by Cicela Månsson and Don Conley.
Screening at ArtSpring at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 13, Beethoven’s Nine: Ode to Humanity is considered one of the best of 300 films previewed by the festival’s screening committee. You don’t have to love classical music to thoroughly enjoy this globe-trotting documentary by award-winning Canadian filmmaker Larry Weinstein.
Beethoven’s Ninth was the first symphony to be accompanied by words — words about love and freedom, hope and peace — created both as a love letter to the world and as a powerful piece of protest music.
A joyful celebration of Beethoven’s music, but also a gripping exploration of war and resiliency, Beethoven’s Nine follows nine individuals as they struggle to fully appreciate the legacy of Beethoven’s genius, the deaf composer’s personal challenges and how humanity continues to look for hope even in the darkest of times.
From a stirring performance by the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, which comprises musicians fleeing the war in Ukraine; to legendary American conductor Leonard Bernstein, who famously performed the Ninth Symphony after the fall of the Berlin Wall; to beloved cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, who introduced generations of children to Beethoven via his “Peanuts” comic strip, Weinstein travels around the world to meet people whose lives and perspectives have been enriched by the German composer and the world-famous symphony he wrote over 200 years ago.
Global events unexpectedly pull the filmmaker into the story in heart-wrenching ways, shining a light on the impossibility of separating art from life, and making Beethoven’s hope for humanity a personal quest for Weinstein himself.
If the horrific and enraging news of the day leaves you wondering why so many people seem so intent on causing one another harm, this uplifting and profoundly moving reminder of our shared humanity will convince you that only music and art can save us from ourselves.
All screenings in the “Best of the Fests” series are at ArtSpring on Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m., including two films in December (Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story, the astonishing profile of a largely forgotten blues singer, on Dec. 4; and Us, Our Pets and the War, featuring courageous Ukrainians evacuating animals from the war zone, on Dec. 11).
Tickets are $14 each and are available online at artspring.ca; in advance by phone (250-537-2102) or in person when the ArtSpring box office is open (Tuesday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.); or at the door starting an hour before each film.