On Sept. 13, at 8:30 pm, the Washington Jewish Film Festival will present the award-winning documentary Zuzana: Music is Life, the triumphant story told by Zuzana Ruzickova, 90, and how she became a world-famous harpsichordist and interpreter of Bach in Czechoslovakia, despite three years in concentration camps and forty years of communist persecution. It won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Washington Jewish Film Festival this year!

Event details:

Date/Time: Wednesday, September 13, 8:30 pm
 

Location: Edlavitch DCJCC
1529 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036

Tickets: https://www.wjff.org/film/zuzana/

Documentary: Zuzana: Music is Life
Dirs. Peter Getzels and Harriet Gordon Getzels
(2017, 83 min, English and Czech with English subtitles)

Despite three years in concentration camps and forty years of communist persecution, Zuzana Ruzickova became a world-famous harpsichordist and interpreter of Bach in Czechoslovakia. Zuzana’s story is remarkable not just because she fulfilled her childhood dream of a career in music; but also in how she navigated a lifetime of political and anti-Semitic persecution, never letting go of her belief that Bach’s music transcended human suffering. Dispatched by the communists to perform in hundreds of concerts and competitions, Zuzana Ruzickova became a tour-de-force abroad, and a source of foreign currency for the regime at home. She is the only person to have recorded Bach’s entire keyboard works, which were released in November 2016 by Warner Music. Zuzana Ruzickova’s story transcends the personal, in a deeply affecting look at the redemptive power of art during Europe’s turbulent 20th century.

The screening is part of the WJFF's 5777: A Year in Review series.