
The violinist, Irmgard Hitzig, is 89 and can’t sit up straight in her armchair any more. Nonetheless her passion for music is fierce and she approaches her work as a music teacher with an unrelenting vigour. Uisenma Borchu’s depiction of this very special woman emerges from their dialogue and interaction. This is not a classic portrait, rather the record of an encounter.


The violinist, Irmgard Hitzig, is 89 and can’t sit up straight in her armchair any more. Nonetheless her passion for music is fierce and she approaches her work as a music teacher with an unrelenting vigour. Uisenma Borchu’s depiction of this very special woman emerges from their dialogue and interaction. This is not a classic portrait, rather the record of an encounter.
2011-01-01
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6.5A fictionalised exploration of Beethoven's life in his final days working on his Ninth Symphony. It is 1824. Beethoven is racing to finish his new symphony. However, it has been years since his last success and he is plagued by deafness, loneliness and personal trauma. A copyist is urgently needed to help the composer. A fictional character is introduced in the form of a young conservatory student and aspiring composer named Anna Holtz. The mercurial Beethoven is skeptical that a woman might become involved in his masterpiece but slowly comes to trust in Anna's assistance and in the end becomes quite fond of her. By the time the piece is performed, her presence in his life is an absolute necessity. Her deep understanding of his work is such that she even corrects mistakes he has made, while her passionate personality opens a door into his private world.
6.7After Roberta Guaspari separates from her husband, she receives encouragement from her mother to take up a job of a music teacher at the Central Park East School in East Harlem.
7.6Passionate and innovative teacher Ron Clark leaves his small hometown to teach in one of Harlem's toughest schools. But to break through to the students, he must use unconventional methods, including his ground-breaking classroom rules, to help them reach their potential. Based on a true story.
6.4The illegitimate son of an African slave and a French plantation owner, Joseph Bologne rises to improbable heights in French society as a celebrated violinist-composer and fencer, complete with an ill-fated love affair and a falling out with Marie Antoinette and her court.
6.3Feeling awkward and isolated, an imaginative and strong-willed teenage girl runs away from home with an older punk rock drifter.
6.6Polish socialist and Marxist Rosa Luxemburg works tirelessly in the service of revolution in early 20th century Poland and Germany. While Luxemburg campaigns for her beliefs, she is repeatedly imprisoned as she forms the Spartacist League offering a new vision for Germany.
6.31981, Quiberon, a small village on the coast of Brittany, France. Hilde Fritsch arrives to visit her old friend who has retreated to a spa hotel to escape the daily pressures of her life. Her friend is world-famous star Romy Schneider, but together, they appear like two regular women who are just happy to be reunited. Yet it quickly becomes apparent that Hilde is supposed to offer the support the sensitive actress needs to be able to truly face her own demons.
7.4When an accomplished pianist is diagnosed with the devastating and incurable disease ALS, she hires a directionless young woman who becomes her full-time caregiver. Complete opposites, the strangers form a life-changing bond inspiring each other to live life to fullest, while being brought together by the most challenging of circumstances.
7.7Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis falls in love with a fishmonger while working for him as a live-in housekeeper.
6.7Academy Award-honoree Peter O'Toole stars in this musical classic about a prim English schoolmaster who learns to show his compassion through the help of an outgoing showgirl. O'Toole, who received his fourth Oscar-nomination for this performance, is joined by '60s pop star Petula Clark and fellow Oscar-nominee Michael Redgrave.
6.1A fictional account of one year in the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. On Christmas Eve 1877, Elisabeth, once idolized for her beauty, turns 40 and is officially deemed an old woman; she starts trying to maintain her public image.
6.7After marrying her long lost love, a pianist finds the relationship threatened by a wealthy composer who is besotted with her.
7.0Set in Paris in 1919, biopic centers on the life of late Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, focusing on his last days as well as his rivalry with Pablo Picasso. Modigliani, a Jew, has fallen in love with Jeanne, a young and beautiful Catholic girl. The couple has an illegitimate child, and Jeanne's bigoted parents send the baby to a faraway convent to be raised by nuns.
7.1The story of sex, violence, race and rock and roll in 1950s Chicago, and the exciting but turbulent lives of some of America's musical legends, including Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Etta James and Chuck Berry.
7.1Calvin is a young novelist who achieved phenomenal success early in his career but is now struggling with his writing – as well as his romantic life. Finally, he makes a breakthrough and creates a character named Ruby who inspires him. When Calvin finds Ruby, in the flesh, sitting on his couch about a week later, he is completely flabbergasted that his words have turned into a living, breathing person.
6.8BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright on screen together for the first time as they reminisce over a long summer weekend in a house Joan once shared with Sir Laurence Olivier.
6.7The life and career of one of comedy's most inimitable modern voices, Mr. Gilbert Gottfried.
7.0A vibrant tribute to one of America's legendary bandleaders, charting Glenn Miller's rise from obscurity and poverty to fame and wealth in the early 1940s.
7.9A boy with Tourette's syndrome overcomes criticism and discrimination to achieve his dream of becoming a teacher.