Intensely Soulful - A Film by Frank Scheffer

For decades, Dutch filmmaker Frank Scheffer has been considered one of the most exciting directors of music documentaries. He is world-renowned for his long-standing collaborations with icons such as John Cage, Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luciano Berio, and retrospectives at MoMA New York, Wien Modern, Shanghai and Ljubljana.

In 2006, while living in Mexico, Scheffer happened to see a report on the Tehran Symphony Orchestra at the Morgenland Festival Osnabrück in the Deutsche Welle programme. The orchestra had played a work by Frank Zappa, whom Scheffer was profiling in a film trilogy. Scheffer flew to Amsterdam immediately, assembled a film crew and arrived in Osnabrück within just two days. This was the beginning of a long-standing collaboration and friendship with the festival and its founder Michael Dreyer, which has led to films made for cinema, 3sat and Dutch television.

In 2009, Frank Scheffer and Michael Dreyer travelled through Syria together for the first time. Since then, Scheffer has accompanied the Syrian clarinettist Kinan Azmeh – to Damascus, New York, Hamburg and Osnabrück. Scheffer's films are always a work in progress. This latest work is no exception.

The film will have its world premiere in fall 2024.
Scheffer will present a first version of this work in progress at the Morgenland Festival Osnabrück.

Followed by a Q&A with Frank Scheffer and Kinan Azmeh