The Sound & Light Cinematic Duo (Merlin Shepherd/ clarinet, bass clarinet and Polina Shepherd / piano) are performing new and traditional Jewish music to accompany the Yuri Morozov Jewish Film Collection (Kiev).

The unique collection contains some of the earliest cinematic representations of east European Jewish communities and more. Black and White silent films as early as 1910 depict the Jews of Ukraine and their daily lives in both narrative and documentary forms. Many of these films have never been seen outside of Ukraine and some have not been screened for over 80 years.

Merlin and Polina Shepherd represent two nations although their families come from very close geographical locations. At the end of the 19th Century, Merlin’s great-grandparents emigrated from Ukraine and Romania to escape pogroms and seek a better world in the west. Polina’s grandparents escaped from the Sho’ah (Holocaust) by fleeing from Kiev/Odessa to Siberia. The different and yet vital sustenance of his western Jewish upbringing and her eastern one have brought them to a unique closeness in musical, creative and spiritual terms.

Their playing acts as the perfect foil for these amazing historic documents. With their deep training, musical experience and by using tradition musical pieces and stylistically accurate new compositions, these films are magically brought back to life almost a century after their first screenings.

By transportation backwards in time with this historically accurate visual and aural experience, these two world class musicians bring their audiences forward to a deeper understanding of present and latter day Yiddishkeit.

Sara’s Grief 1913 (13’43”) dir A. Arkatov. One of the first Jewish cinema dramas about moral, religious and emotional ethics.

Jews and the Land 1927 (17’46”) dir Abram Room. This extraordinay documentary describes Soviet Russia’s attempt to create a colony of collective farms of Jews, in Crimea in the 1920s.

Against Fathers’ Will (Mabul) 1926 (43’30)
dir Evgeny Ivanov-Barkov. Based on Shalom Aleichem’s story, Flow of Blood, this film depicts the participation of Jews in the 1905 Revolution.

Shadows of Belvedere is a full length feature made in Yalta (Ukraine) in 1926. It is a fiercely anti Polish Propaganda film, about antisemitism and chauvinism in Polish Society. In the centre of the story is a simple love story or Romeo and Juliette. Here Romeo is a Polish Aristocrat and Juliette is a poor Jewish woman who arrived from Kiev with her old father. Polish Society reacts against this alliance. As a result of Society intrigue at the highest official level, corruption and manipulation of the Law and police intervention, the young couple are charged with high treason and sentenced to death. The couple are allowed to escape with their lives if they leave Poland forever.

This film show us many extraordinary scenes including a crowd scene demonstration by the War Wounded of Poland, a secret lodge gathering, a Society masked ball, all using highly imaginative early cinematography.