Concerts and numerous other events around the world celebrate the 80-year-old Arvo Pärt in 2015. The works of the worldwide famous Estonian composer are accessible not only on concerts and on records, but quite often in cinemas as well. Pärt’s music inspired numerous film directors from Jean-Luc Godard through Tom Tykwer up to last year’s Oscar-winning Paolo Sorrentino. The movie series of the the Estonian Institute presents films, featuring Arvo Pärt’s music, as well as two documentaries about the composer.

The screenings will be introduced by music and film critic László Kolozsi, lecturer at MOME (Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest).

SOUNDS AND SILENCE - TRAVELS WITH MANFRED EICHER
Swiss documentary, 2009, directed by Peter Guyer and Norbert Wiedmer
87 min, with Hungarian subtitles

Excursions into a world of sounds and noises - with Manfred Eicher, the outstanding arbiter of contemporary music and founder of the ECM record label. Keith Jarrett's Köln Concert, Officium by Jan Garbarek and Hilliard Ensemble, Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa. How many people could we find who have never heard ECM music? And yet we may know this record or that artist, but not the network they are part of. And least of all the man who created the network and holds it together.

The film explores the specific nature of Manfred Eicher's work. "Sound and Silence is an unusual experiment, an ambitious attempt to decode the language of music. The result is a highly original fusion of concert feature, artist's portrait, episodic film and road movie." (Kai Löffler, WDR 3)

Works of Arvo Pärt used in the soundtrack: Tabula rasa, Für Lennart in Memoriam és Da Pacem Domine.