ABOUT THE PROJECT

LOGLINE
Alma Rosé is born into a musical elite family at the turn of the century Vienna but her life changes when she’s interned in Auschwitz. To save her life and the lives of many others, Alma becomes the conductor of the Auschwitz women's orchestra. This is the story of Alma, the women she saves and their offspring.

SYNOPSIS
This is the story of Alma Rosé. Born into the musical elite turn-of-the-last-century Vienna, the capital of arts and music in Europe. Her uncle is Gustav Mahler and her father, Arnold Rosé, the famous concertmaster and conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic. She has a fabled childhood surrounded by musicians and artists and has a highly successful career as a musician.

In 1938 when Austria is annexed, she manages to escape to London to perform with her father and then to the Netherlands.

But when the Germans occupy the Netherlands, Alma knows her life is at stake. She arranges to marry a Dutch engineer but this fictitious marriage does not save her nor does the conversion to Christianity. She flees to France but is arrested by the Gestapo in Drancy and is deported in July 1943 to Auschwitz concentration camp.

Word of her impressive performance spread to the neighboring camp, Birkenau, and to the ears of SS Officer Maria Mandl who supervised the women’s camp and ran the Women’s Orchestra.

Alma is made its conductor. Alma protects her players, even lying about their musical ability to save lives. However, Alma does not. She died in the camp in 1944.

Her actions—and her music—would have repercussions for decades to come. She is a controversial figure—viewed as a Nazi collaborator by some, a savior by others. And as we will see, nothing is black and white. But her undeniable role in protecting the lives of her musicians inadvertently lead to generations of Holocaust survivors. As these second generation daughters, themselves remarkably linked by music, help us piece together the complex and layered portrait of Alma, the film explores the impact of transgenerational trauma, the tentacles of which reach directly from the Holocaust.

PROJECT TYPE Documentary Feature

DIRECTOR Francine Zuckerman
PRODUCER Francine Zuckerman, Sally Blake

WEBSITE zfilms.ca

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