The Documentary Film
Children want to be dinosaur hunters, policemen, cowboys and astronauts, firemen, vets and princesses. What child today dreams of a future as a composer? For many of us the moon or Mars seem more accessible than the world of music. The "Babel 2007" music project seeks to overcome this barrier. A film team accompanies a child in his journey into the world of music. How do you feel when, at the age of twelve, you suddenly find yourself giving the tempo in front of a 100-piece orchestra, and are supposed to work with the musicians on an equal footing and develop a composition? How do you grow (or fail) in your tasks, how do school, the home and your friends fit into it all? How can the shared work of many different people bear fruit and overcome linguistic barriers and national borders? How does working with children and amateurs inspire professional work in the music business? Will this shared journey bring people closer?
The film tells the story of the "Babel 2007" music project through the story of one of the children involved in it. The child’s involvement in the project and his development will stand as an example of the development and creation of the whole. The child’s point of view and feelings will offer a glimpse into the growth and progress of the "Babel 2007" piece and of the people working on it together. Music will be made into a unifying element to be experienced by all age groups and social classes in a region with different languages, nationalities and cultures. Conceived as a project that would step over language and nation boundaries and realised in three languages (German, English, French), the work will also integrate other art forms like a short experimental film and dance. The film does not merely document the whole project but indeed contributes a visual-experimental part to the performance and as such the documentation project is seen as an integral feature of this project.
Documentation in co-operation with the Bauhaus University of Weimar and Grafiker.org.