The Klezmer Project

Leandro is a frustrated Jewish wedding cameraman with no interest in his family’s religion. But when he falls in love with klezmer-playing clarinettist Paloma, he fabricates a documentary project on klezmer music in order to spend time with her. The film takes him through Eastern Europe in search of lost klezmer melodies that have been safeguarded by the Romani who lived alongside the Jews before the Second World War. Paloma Schachmann and Leandro Koch’s hybrid, multilayered road movie is a far cry from your average music documentary. It takes us from Buenos Aires to the frontiers of Ukraine, Romania and Moldavia in pursuit of a disappearing cultural heritage. Filled with genuine curiosity, the young man finds himself transported – despite financial constraints – from a conversation with his ailing grandmother back to where it all began. Cleverly dovetailing a personal story into an exploration of Yiddish traditions, the co-directors themselves assume the lead roles in the film’s central metafiction. This narrative sophistication allows the duo’s refreshing sense of humour to flourish and gives rise to a powerful groundswell of emotions that carries us away in music. (Berlinale)