Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements

THE DAILY 7:40 PM SHOW WILL BE AN OPEN CAPTION PRESENTATION.

MOONLIGHT SONATA is a deeply personal memoir about a deaf boy growing up, his deaf grandfather growing old, and Ludwig van Beethoven the year he was blindsided by deafness and wrote his iconic sonata.

Director Irene Taylor Brodsky turns the camera on her deaf parents and her 11-year-old deaf son, Jonas, who has cochlear implants and is discovering a profound world of hearing – and music. As Jonas learns the first movement of Beethoven’s iconic sonata on the piano, his grandparents, deaf for nearly 80 years, watch with deepening awe what time and technology have bestowed on their grandson.

It is an elegantly emotional film, incisive and reflective by turns, that deals feelingly not only with silence and hearing but youth and aging as well. It does that by telling a trio of interconnected stories. There is Jonas, the director’s deaf son who had cochlear implants when he was 4 and 8. There is her deaf father, who is growing older and dealing with the onset of dementia. And then there is the wild-card presence of Ludwig van Beethoven and the marvelous piece of music he wrote just as he began to realize he was going deaf.

Much like the iconic piece after which it is titled, MOONLIGHT SONATA is a story about loss and, more importantly, what we discover when we push beyond it.

Produced, edited and directed by Oscar-nominated Irene Taylor Brodsky (THE FINAL INCH, HEAR AND NOW). A Vermilion Films/HBO Documentary films production.