ArtFIFA 2017: Zhu Xiao-Mei

 Zhu Xiao-Mei: How Bach Defeated Mao

Germany / 2016 . 58 min / Chinese, French, English s.-t.

Category : FIFA Competition

This is another excellent film on a classical music piano virtuoso in FIFA competition category this year. You can read about FIFA documentary on French pianist Alain Planès here. It is interesting to compare those two musicians because each creates from a very different private perspective and each has achieved great success. With Planès, it is the integration of all his aesthetic, artistic senses into a unified expressive wholeness. With Xiao-Mei, it is finding the balance within herself, the unity of music and her emotions, and anchoring her being and her music in the timeless ancient philosophies of Lao Tzu and Buddha. 

Zhu Xiao-Mei's favourt composer is Bach. She is best known for playing Bach. She loves interpreting his music and claims that Back was a Buddha disciple, though he did not know it. It is the focus and unity in Bach's music that are Buddha-like, and with which Xiao-Mei strongly identifies. Her second favourite composer is Schubert, she also plays Chopin. She appears to limit her repertoire to those scores that resonate within her, that she strongly identifies with emotionally and philosophically since they correspond to her personal integrity, her sense of centring within and finding the all embracing wholeness. 

After being in exile first in the USA for 8 years and then in France where she still lives, she was finally persuaded to go back to China and face her fears and memories of repression and persecution. What surprised her the most, despite years of cultural banishment and even the outlawing of instruments like piano, she encounters a terrific interest in her concerts mostly from China's young generation. She is stunned because her western audiences are mostly in their sixties, and the demand for classical music is nothing so intense as what she encounters in China.

When Zhu Xiao-Mei was asked how could she play and understand Bach so well although she was Chinese, she replied that Bach music transcended cultural barriers and was a heritage of the entire humanity. She also stated that Chinese people might understand Bach better than westerners because of their attunement to such Chinese philosophers as Lao Tzu.

This film makes a viewer to ask a question why in the west the interest in the great classical composers and their music is waning, why it does not find much resonance with the younger generations? Why do rock concerts get so much funding and promotion and classical music concerts are being neglected? Could the old music masters come back to the forefront in our western society soon, as they did in China after years of political rejection and neglect?

OFFICIAL FILM SYNOPSIS

Presented in partnership with ICI ARTV

“The music of Bach enabled pianist Zhu Xiao-Mei to cope with the worst challenges of her life. After experiencing all of the consequences of the Mao regime and the Cultural Revolution, she emigrated to Paris in 1980. She was deeply marked by the great cultural darkness that came over her country under Mao. She was publicly humiliated, her teachers were intimidated and her musical scores were burned. In this personal and touching documentary about the immense power of music, Paul Smaczny tells Zhu Xiao-Mei’s story as she agrees to return to China for the first time and discovers a country transformed.”

DIRECTOR

Paul Smaczny

Emmy Award-winner Paul Smaczny is a German-based documentary filmmaker and producer of music films and concert, ballet and opera recordings. His latest works include the award-winning documentaries Die Thomaner – A Year in the Life of St. Thomas Boys Choir Leipzig (2012), John Cage – Journeys in Sound (2012) and Music – A Journey for Life (2013), about conductor Riccardo Chailly. In 2010, he founded his own production company, Accentus Music, which quickly became one of the most distinguished production companies in the classical music sphere.

PRODUCTION TEAM

Cinematography: Michael Boomers, Nyika Jancsó

Distribution: Accentus Music

Sound mixing: Karl Atteln, Markus Krohn

Editing: Dirk Seliger

Producer: Anca-Monica Pandelea, Paul Smaczny

Sound: Sebastian Braun, Toine Mertens, Robert Sandow, Christoph Wonneberger

Production: Accentus Music

FILM TRAILER

Two years ago, Art FIFA festival presented another excellent film about pianist Zhu Xiao-Mei. You can read about it here.

FIFA 2015: LE RETOUR EST LE MOUVEMENT DU TAO

For more information and FIFA film festival and scheduling, visit the Art FIFA website.