Defiant Requiem

http://defiantrequiemfilm.com/story.php

STOCK FOOTAGE AND STILLS

CLICK HERE FOR A COMPLETE LIST OF ARTWORK FEATURED IN THE FILM

Terezin Memorial
International Committee Of The Red Cross
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Wiener Library Institute Of Contemporary History
Yivo Institute For Jewish Research
Steven Spielberg Film And Video Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Gift Of Julien Bryan Archive
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Courtesy Of Bernard And Emery Klein
Yad Vashem Photo Archives
Central State Archive For Photos & Films, Kiev
Bundesfilmarchiv/Transit Film Gmbh
Jewish Museum In Prague Photo Archive
The National Center For Jewish Film, At Brandeis University
Museum Of Jewish Heritage
National Museum Prague, Czech Republic
Jewish Museum Berlin, Permanent Loan Of Thomas Fritta-Haas
Katja Manor
Jan And Eva Rocek
Edgar Krasa
Zdenka Fantlova
Oddball Film & Video, San Francisco
Thought Equity Motion
Itn Source/ Reuters
Getty Images
Deutsches Filminstitut, Frankfurt

FILMMAKERS

DOUG SHULTZ - Director / Writer / Producer

Doug Shultz has been making award-winning documentary films for over 15 years, on subjects ranging from history to science to the environment. He recently wrote, produced and directed the Peabody Award-winning film Silence of the Bees, which also garnered four Emmy nominations, and he produced and directed the Emmy-winning series CIA Confidential for National Geographic. Other recent films include the Nature specials Cuba: The Accidental Eden and The Loneliest Animals. DEFIANT REQUIEM is his first feature film.

PETER SCHNALL - Producer / Director of Photography / Executive Producer

Peter Schnall is a seven-time Emmy Award and recent Peabody Award-winner who has been making distinctive films and documentaries for more than twenty years. After nearly ten years as an independent, Peter began a 6-year stint as Producer and Senior Producer of the long-running National Geographic Television weekly series Explorer. In 1996 Peter left National Geographic Television to form Partisan Pictures in New York City. His last feature documentary This is a Game, Ladies won the Audience Award at the AFI Silverdocs Film Festival. 

MARK FASON - Editor

Mark is a Peabody Award-winning, Emmy-nominated editor who has been creating distinctive documentary films for the last 15 years. In that time, he's worked with many acclaimed filmmakers including Spike Lee, Oscar winning director Ross Kauffman, seven-time Emmy Award-winning director Peter Schnall as well as Emmy and Peabody award-winner Doug Shultz. Mark's unique combination of storytelling has been integral to many marquee projects for a wide range of esteemed clients including the PBS series NATURE, HBO SPORTS, National Geographic, The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, MTV, A&E, The Museum on Natural History and the Wildlife Convervation Society.

WHITNEY JOHNSON - Executive Producer

In her role as Vice-President of Production at Partisan Pictures, Whitney has managed over 100 hours of programming, including the Peabody-award winning documentary, Silence of the Bees for PBS/Nature and the Emmy-winning series CIA Confidential for the National Geographic Channel. Other notable films include National Geographic's On Board Air Force One and the PBS special Through a Dog's Eyes. Before joining Partisan, Whitney worked as an Associate Producer for Elizabeth Arledge on the Emmy-winning film The Forgetting, a PBS special on Alzheimer's Disease; Cracking the Code of Life, NOVA's 2-hour special about the race to decode the human genome; and the ABC/Peter Jennings' Production, Out of Control; AIDS in Black America which won a George Foster Peabody Award.

MURRY SIDLIN - Music Director

Murry Sidlin is the creator/conductor of DEFIANT REQUIEM The Live Performance,  which was the inspiration and genesis for this film.  He has conducted 17 performances of Defiant Requiem Live in such cities as Jerusalem, Budapest, Washington, D.C., three times at Terezin, and Houston. Over the next musical season he will perform this concert/drama in Atlanta, Baltimore, New York's Lincoln Center, and in Prague.  He is an internationally recognized conductor, teacher, lecturer, and is the founder and president of the Defiant Requiem Foundation. He has been decorated by the Archbishop of Prague for his contributions to the illumination of the Terezin legacy.

ADINA PLISKIN - Associate Producer

A painter and photographer, Adina began working in film a few years ago as a production assistant on the Nature special Cuba, The Accidental Eden. She also worked as Associate Producer on the series Blue Collar Dogs and the special Manila Hostage Crisis for National Geographic. DEFIANT REQUIEM is her first feature film.

ARROW

ARROW

The memorial performance of Verdi's Requiem in Terezin

Conductor Murry Sidlin leads Soprano Sharon Christman and choir in a performance of Verdi's Requiem in Terezin.

Danny and Rafi Krasa lift their father Edgar Krasa, who was Raphael Schachter's roommate and a choir member during their time in Terezin.



Nazi officers about to watch a performance of Verdi's Requiem in a scene from the film

"Know before whom you stand." A wall of the secret synagogue, Terezin.

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STORY

DEFIANT REQUIEM tells the little-known story of the Nazi concentration camp, Terezin. Led by imprisoned conductor Rafael Schächter, the inmates of Terezin fought back...with art and music. Through hunger, disease and slave labor, the Jewish inmates of Terezin hold onto their humanity by staging plays, composing opera and using paper and ink to record the horrors around them.

This creative rebellion reaches its peak when Schächter teaches a choir of 150 inmates one of the world's most difficult and powerful choral works, Verdi's Requiem, re-imagined as a condemnation of the Nazis. The choir would ultimately confront the Nazis face to face... and sing to them what they dare not say.

For over ten years, conductor Murry Sidlin has dreamed of bringing the Requiem back to Terezin. Now, through soaring concert footage, powerful survivor recollections, cinematic dramatizations and evocative animation, DEFIANT REQUIEM brings the incredible story of this artistic uprising to life.