Eternal Memory

Tuesday, 20^th January, 7.30 pm, Ulster Hall, Bedford Street

Ulster Orchestra, conductor Nicholas Cleobury, with Raphael Wallfisch, cello, and guest presenter

A commemoration of the Holocaust with music written by composers, some of whom were inspired by these events and others who lost their lives in it. The programme includes music by Victor Ullmann, John Tavener , John Williams (Schindler’s List), and a work new to Northern Ireland, Tilson Thomas’s From the Diary of Anne Frank. The music is supported by text and visual images.

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Special Film Screening – Bent

Friday, 23^rd January, 7.30 pm, Cara-Friend Rooms, Cathedral Buildings

NYrock.com: This 1997 film portrays the persecution of homosexuals during the Nazi reign of terror, a subject unknown to many, overlooked by others, but clearly overshadowed by the Third Reich’s more infamous genocide of the Jews. Adapted for the screen by Martin Sherman (author of the ground-breaking and award-winning play of the same name), the movie is essentially about the triumph of the human spirit over perceivably insurmountable obstacles. Despite the gruesome subject matter, playwright Sherman and director Sean Mathias (acclaimed theatre director making his film directorial debut, and notably, chosen by Sherman) focus less on producing a harsh re-creation of the Holocaust and more on portraying an existential view of it. Rather than constructing a commercially acceptable and historically accurate depiction of the war, Sherman and Mathias concentrate on how the human psyche reacts to the devastation. The leading characters, Max and Horst (superbly performed by Clive Owen and Lothaire Bluteau, respectively) are not simply affected by the obvious emotional trauma of being prey to murderous rampage and blatant torture, but by the more obscure emotional trauma resulting from the deprivation of love, compassion, and free will. [top]