The Klezmer Project

Argentinian wedding videographer Leandro Koch has absolutely no interest in his Jewish background until he falls in love with clarinetist Paloma Schachmann. She specializes in klezmer music, the traditional Yiddish wedding music of Eastern Europe. They decide to make a documentary together, visiting the last European practitioners of this genre.

Their wanderings through Ukraine, Romania, and Moldavia are mostly fruitless, with the Jewish presence limited to old photos and painful memories. What they do discover is that many local folk musicians still incorporate elements of the klezmer tradition in their repertoire.

Koch and Schachmann intertwine their personal journey with a folktale about two lovers who defy Jewish traditions, and music historian Rob Cohen explains why after the Second World War the language of the klezmer tradition—Yiddish—gave way to Hebrew, the language of the Zionists. In this way The Klezmer Project also becomes a requiem for a neglected language.