Director: Irene Taylor Brodsky Producers: Tahria Sheather, Irene Taylor Brodsky
Description:
Moonlight Sonata: Deafness In Three Movements is a coming-of-age story about a boy growing up, his grandfather growing old, and Ludwig van Beethoven, who crafted his Moonlight Sonata as he was going deaf. Director Irene Taylor Brodsky once again turns the camera on her deaf parents and, now, her 11-year-old deaf son Jonas, who has cochlear implants and is discovering a profound world of hearing—and music. As Jonas learns the first movement of Beethoven’s iconic sonata on the piano, his grandparents, deaf for nearly eighty years, watch with deepening awe what time and technology have bestowed their grandson. But when Jonas struggles with the sound of his mistakes, Beethoven’s own musical journey comes to life in an animated world of watercolor and haunting soundscapes. As the great composer loses the sense that brought him so much music and fame, Jonas’s grandfather Paul loses his grasp on his mind. Their lives weave a sonata over three centuries, about all we can discover once we push beyond what has been lost.
Biography:
Irene Taylor Brodsky is an Oscar-nominated, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker whose films journey deep into the human senses. Moonlight Sonata follows her Peabody-winning memoir about her deaf parents, Hear and Now, and her New York Times Op-Doc on the impact of hearing technology, Between Sound and Silence. Her Emmy-nominated HBO feature Beware the Slenderman received two Critics’ Choice Award nominations for Best Director and Best Documentary. Her films explore blindness in Open Your Eyes, the global effort to eradicate polio in her Oscar-nominated The Final Inch, childhood grief in her Emmy-winning One Last Hug, a portrait of a single bird in her Emmy-winning Saving Pelican 895, and one family’s testament to love and music, Homeless: The Soundtrack. Moonlight Sonata is Irene’s eighth film collaboration with HBO. She has also worked as a news journalist, a Himalayan mountain guide, is a Sundance Institute Fellow, and a documentary branch member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as well as the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. She founded Vermilion Films and most recently launched The Treehouse Project, a nonprofit focused on accessibility to independent film.
