September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill (1995)

September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill is a stunning fusion of film, theatre, and concert performance that reimagines the songs of legendary composer Kurt Weill. Featuring a remarkable ensemble — including Teresa Stratas, Lou Reed, Nick Cave, PJHarvey, Betty Carter, Elvis Costello, Mary Margaret O’Hara, The Persuasions, William S. Burroughs, and more — the film transforms Weill’s haunting melodies and biting social commentary into a contemporary meditation on art, exile, and the human condition.

September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill is a fusion of film, theatre, and concert performance that reimagines the music of the German composer Kurt Weill whose songs bridged opera, cabaret, and popular music with piercing social and emotional insight. Featuring an extraordinary ensemble — Teresa Stratas, Lou Reed, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Charlie Haden, Elvis Costello & The Brodsky Quartet, Betty Carter, Mary Margaret O’Hara, William S. Burroughs, and more — September Songs transforms Weill’s work into a haunting collage of performance, theatre, and cinema. Each artist reinvents Weill’s legacy through their own lens, creating a living dialogue between past and present, exile and belonging, beauty and decay. Blended throughout the film are stylized “documentaries”, evocative imagery, and cinematic transitions that transform Weill’s haunting melodies and biting social commentary into a contemporary meditation on art, exile, and the human condition. The film celebrates Weill’s enduring influence on 20th-century music and culture. Through its visuals, its music and its original choreography, the film merges concert, cabaret, and expressionist cinema into a single dreamlike experience. The restoration — undertaken by Sphinx Productions with the generous support of Telefilm Canada — faithfully revives the film’s original textures, sound design, and the distinctive cinematography of celebrated German DOP Horst Zeidler, preserving a landmark of Canadian music cinema for new audiences worldwide.

A film by Larry Weinstein
With
Teresa Stratas, Lou Reed, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, David Johansen,
Mary Margaret O’Hara, Betty Carter, William S. Burroughs, Stan Ridgway,
Elvis Costello & The Brodsky String Quartet, GhettOriginal Dance Company,
The Persuasions, Charlie Haden, Kathy Dalton, Esprit Orchestra,
Ellen Shipley, Ralph Schuckett, Bertolt Brecht, Lotte Lenya and Kurt Weill
Music Supervisor/Producer Hal Willner
Production Designer Michael Levine
Director of Photography Horst Zeidler
Editor David New
Writers David Mortin, Larry Weinstein
Produced by Niv Fichman, Larry Weinstein
Directed by Larry Weinstein
Produced by Rhombus Media, in association with ZDF – German Television,
CBC/Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and RTP – Portugal
Film Restoration by Sphinx Productions, in association with Larry Weinstein
Productions, with the generous financial support of Telefilm Canada

Runtime: 91 minutes

Q&A to follow screening with Ron Mann