The City Without Jews: A Live Music and Silent Movie Event

Join us for the second in our silent movie and live music series for H K Breslauer’s The City Without Jews (Die Stadt Ohne Juden, 1924) featuring the musical accompaniment of world-renowned klezmer violinist Alicia Svigals – of Klezmatics fame – and Donald Sosin, the celebrated silent film pianist.

Set in the fictitious city of Utopia (a thinly-disguised stand-in for Vienna), this satirical film follows the political and personal consequences of an anti-Semitic law forcing all Jews to leave the country. After an initial wave of enthusiasm, the citizens of Utopia are faced with the consequences, as they watch over their own economic and cultural decline in a "City Without Jews". Facing a political backlash, their government must decide whether or not to revoke its earlier expulsion decree.

Darkly comedic in tone, Breslauer's film has an ominous prophetic resonance for today's audience. Intended as a sharp critique of Nazism, it was banned after 1933 (all complete prints were thought to be destroyed). Now, thanks to the serendipitous discovery of a nitrate print in a Parisian flea market in 2015, as well as to the restoration efforts of the Filmarchiv Austria, this previously “lost” classic of early twentieth century cinema can once again be appreciated in its ever-relevant entirety.

This program is underwritten by a generous grant from the Sunrise Foundation for Education and the Arts, La Jolla, California

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