2022, 80′, directed by Paul Smaczny.
Sunday 11 December at 20:00 Beirut / 19:00 CET
Online screening (Zoom Platform)
Followed by a discussion in English with
Paul Smaczny, film director.
Online event
Film
ENG. Metanoia means beyond thought; to broaden and change the way of seeing.
Metanoia, which crosses both time and borders with the works of Giacomo Puccini, Arvo Pärt, Alexander Borodin, Johann Sebastian Bach, Heitor Villa-Lobos and Ennio Morricone, is steeped in this concept: from Puccini, who only wrote one sacred work on account of the ‘Almighty God’ commanding him to write ‘only for the stage’, to Bach, who possessed an astonishing ability to make us experience transcendence using the simplest of elements, to Pärt, whose ten-year creative crisis birthed a new, highly original musical language. Together with her ensemble, K, the choir Sequenza 9.3, and violinist Manon Galy, Italo-Brazilian conductor Simone Menezes travels across Italy and invites us to experience the thought-transcending aspects of music, and to uncover the personal journeys of Metanoia of some of the greatest figures in music and art.
Film Director
Emmy award winner Paul Smaczny (born 1957) is a documentary filmmaker and producer of music films, concert, opera and ballet recordings. Among his multiple award-winning works are films such as Entre-quatre-z-yeux (1998), Multiple Identities – Encounters with Daniel Barenboim (2001), Claudio Abbado – Hearing the Silence (2003), Knowledge is the Beginning (2006), El Sistema (2009), Die Thomaner (2012), John Cage – Journeys in Sound (2012), Music, a Journey for Life – The Conductor Riccardo Chailly (2014), Zhu Xiao-Mei – How Bach Defeated Mao (2016), Gidon Kremer – Finding Your Own Voice (2018) and Herbert Blomstedt – A Portrait (2020).
Paul Smaczny studied law, French literature and German philology in Regensburg, Paris and Hamburg. After graduating with a Master of Arts degree, he worked as an assistant director and dramaturge on theater productions in France. In 1986 he co-founded the French film and theater group “Le Grande Nuage de Magellan” and worked as a dramaturge at the Centre Dramatique National de Reims from 1987 to 1989.
Since 1989 he has been active in various areas of film and TV production as a writer, director and producer. In 1995, he became head of production at EuroArts Music International and served as its managing director from 2000 to 2009. In 2010, he founded Accentus Music, his own production company and label based in Leipzig.
As a producer and director, his work continues to focus on recording international concert, opera and ballet events, major music documentaries, artist, and orchestra portraits. Paul Smaczny has produced, often in collaboration with TV partners such as ZDF, ARTE, various ARD broadcasters, NHK, BBC, RAI, SRF, WNET, CCTV well over 250 films and TV programs with worldwide distribution, directed many times and documented many of the most important musical events of the last 30 years.
Paul Smaczny is also a recurring jury chairman and jury member at international film festivals such as The International Emmy Awards, Montréal International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA), Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels (FIPA), Golden Prague Festival, Ladakh International Film Festival and Master of Art Film Festival.
In partnership with Istituto Italiano di Cultura – Beirut
Beirut Art Film Festival 