Best movies like Zubin Mehta: Conductor and Citizen of the World

An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 1899 play "Uncle Vanya" played out by a company of actors. The setting is their run down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.

An ancient Indian warrior who has reached the end of his life is brought back from his 'death' to save his family from a raiding party of enemy Indians in this unique story of 'Indians without a single cowboy.

As a Sikh man with a full beard and turban, AMRIT SINGH is often the target of racial profiling. But when he sees his dreams of becoming Chief of Surgery at a state-of-the-art transplant center dwindle because of his appearance, Amrit goes against a tradition he's maintained his whole life and cuts his hair. Hiding this decision from his girlfriend and family in Toronto is only the start of a series of compromises Amrit finds himself making as he deals with hospital politics and health care injustices. When his compromises result in the death of a patient, Amrit begins to reexamine the value of the religious traditions he'd turned his back on.

A Film Journey to the Soul of India documents the life of sitar master Ravi Shankar in the late 1960s and early 1970s, following him on his return to India to revisit his guru, Bengali multi-instrumentalist and composer, Baba Ustad Allauddin Khan. It further explores Shankar's life as a musician and teacher in the United States and Europe, initiating those in the West to the exceptional world that is Indian classical music and culture. Through rare and candid footage shot in both India and the United States, Raga sheds light on Shankar's influences and collaborations, from Allauddin Khan to his famed dancer brother Uday Shankar, to his associations with Western musicians Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison. Fully narrated by Shankar himself, the film reveals music as the soul of India and of Shankar's life.

Bugs conducts the Warner Brothers Symphony in Franz von Suppé's "Morning, Noon, and Night in Vienna" while reacting to a bothersome fly.

Rahul Seth is a dashing young millionaire who believes he is "western" enough to rebel against his mother and grandmother. They are not too keen about his Caucasian girlfriend Kimberly who, to make matters worse, is a pop star. Before you can say "karmic intervention," Kimberly dies in a freak accident and Rahul is devastated. Instead of allowing him to mourn in peace, Rahul's mother sees the opportunity she's been waiting for. She threatens to call off his sister's wedding unless he finds himself a "nice Indian girl." Rahul enlists the services of Sue, a fiercely independent escort whom he believes to be Hispanic, and therefore not "married" to the conventions taught to young Indian women. With a wink in her eye, Sue accepts the deal to pose as his Indian bride-to-be. She needs the money and having never been a fan of the typical Indian male, she feels her heart is safe. The charade begins....

Buffalo Bill plans to put on his own Wild West sideshow, and Chief Sitting Bull has agreed to appear in it. However, Sitting Bull has his own hidden agenda, involving the President and General Custer.

A young Irishwoman comes to the United States to live and work with her mother as a cleaning lady at Carnegie Hall. She becomes attached to the place as the people she meets there gradually shape her life. The film also includes a variety of performances from some of the foremost musical artists of the times: conductors Bruno Walter & Leopold Stokowski, solists Arthur Rubinstein & Jascha Haifetz, singers Lily Pons & Jan Peerce and bandleader Vaughn Monroe among many others.

Walt Disney's timeless masterpiece is an extravaganza of sight and sound! See the music come to life, hear the pictures burst into song and experience the excitement that is Fantasia over and over again.

It's 1947 and the borderlines between India and Pakistan are being drawn. A young girl bears witnesses to tragedy as her ayah is caught between the love of two men and the rising tide of political and religious violence.

An orchestra assembles for a rehearsal in an ancient chapel under the inquisitive eyes of a TV documentary crew, but an uprising breaks out.

A disfigured musical genius, hidden away in the Paris Opera House, terrorises the opera company for the unwitting benefit of a young protégée whom he trains and loves. The 25th anniversary of the first public performance of Phantom of the Opera was celebrated with a grand performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

After his wife's death, a vallenato singer from Majagual, Sucre, decides to quit music and return his allegedly cursed accordion to his master. He is joined by Fermín Morales, a teenage boy who admires him and wishes to follow his footsteps. Together, they start a journey throughout several towns in Northern Colombia to Taroa, in La Guajira desert, where the singer's master supposedly lives.

A spoiled rich girl who wants to be a dancer finds herself caught into between two rival dance groups set to do battle at an underground competition.

Ismail Merchant's feature directorial debut addresses a subject close to his heart: the expressive Urdu language of Northern India, in danger of extinction as political trends and modernization obscure its contributions to Indian culture. Merchant 's treatment is wry and good humored , as his characters - an aging Urdu poet (Shashi Kapoor) and a worshipful young college lecturer - clash despite their shared passion for the beauty of words.

Danny has been in the army for 4 years, yet all he thinks about is Brooklyn and how great it is. When he returns after the war, he soon finds that Brooklyn is not so nice after all. He is able to share a place with Nick, the janitor of his old High School, and get a job as a singer in a music store. He also meets Leo, a talented pianist and his teacher Anne, whose dream is to singing Opera. When Jamie arrives from England, Danny tries to show him the Brooklyn experience and help him compose modern swing music. Together, these four also try to help Leo get the Brooklyn Music scholarship.

Opera singer Prudence Budell, overhears truck driver Johnny Donnetti singing opera, and persuades her opera company to give him a chance in her new opera. They fall in love, but on meeting his colleague Mary while visiting Johnny's work, Prudence becomes convinced Johnny is in love with her.

Tonight We Sing is a 1953 musical biopic film, directed by Mitchell Leisen, based on the life and career of the celebrated impresario Sol Hurok. It stars David Wayne and Ezio Pinza.

The extraordinary life of Chickasaw Nation citizen Mary Thompson Fisher is given a heartfelt tribute in this moving look at a culture in transition, and the way one woman used her voice to keep Native traditions and stories alive. Raised in Indian Territory, Fisher left home to pursue her dream of becoming an actress, only to find that her true calling was at home all along. From Chautauquas to Broadway and even the White House, Fisher traveled the world performing Native American songs and stories for heads of state, American presidents, and European royalty. Featuring Chickasaw citizens both in front of and be-hind the camera, this touching portrait starring Q’orianka Kilcher (“The New World”) and Graham Greene honors a woman whose own story was the most inspiring one she never told. -TCFF database

College freshman Krishna Reddy, who has never cared for his Indian-American cultural heritage, looks forward to a new life on campus but is surprised to find that he has been assigned Indian roommates.

The oldest Quebecois Benedictine convent open its gates to a documentary filmmaker for the first time. Observed up close, life behind its walls is busier than one would expect. About twenty cloistered nuns, most of them over 70, share their daily life with diligence and humor. A contemplative portrait of a community of sisterhood and solidarity emerges, punctuated by prayer, work and games evenings.

One of the first US born conductors to receive worldwide fame, Leonard Bernstein is an exceptional composer and certainly not only due to The West Side Story. Instead of concentrating exclusively on his most famous work, Thomas von Steinaecker sets out to paint a complete picture of Bernstein. Thus, the documentary focusses on the American’s less known later works and on three compositions in particular: his Mass, the musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the great final opera A Quiet Place. The film paints a vivid picture of the multitalented Bernstein, struggling with his role as composer and conductor, tackling the tension between successes and flops, between the politics of his time and his own liberal humanitarian claim. It looks back on Bernstein’s major achievements, such as his acclaimed conducting of Mahler and his involvement in the Young People’s Concerts, and it shows Bernstein’s work with young aspiring musicians as well as his political commitment.

He is the most performed contemporary composer in the world. And yet he rarely ventures out in public, prefers to keep quiet about his music, feels at home in the forests of Estonia and generates therewith - perhaps involuntarily - the impression of a recluse, which is attributed to him again and again: Arvo Part. In The Lost Paradise, we follow him over a period of one year in his native Estonia, to Japan and the Vatican. The documentary is framed by the stage production of Adam's Passion, a music theater piece based on the Biblical story of the fall of Adam featuring three key works by Arvo Part. The world-renowned director Robert Wilson has brought this work to the stage in a former submarine factory in Tallinn. Tracing their creative process, the film offers rare and personal insights into the worlds of two of the most fascinating personalities in the international arts and music scene.

An account of the life and work of controversial German orchestra conductor Herbert von Karajan (1908-89), celebrated as one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century.

When an American woman takes an impromptu journey to Mumbai too get away from her overbearing mother, she befriends an Indian woman striving to balance her family's culture with modern day demands. What ensues is an ethnic and generational mash-up that will leave audiences enthralled at the calamity of old-school traditions and contemporary lifestyle.

Fifty years after his death, this musical and psychological portrait of Ralph Vaughan Williams explores the passions that drove a giant of 20th-century English music.

This documentary follows composer and conductor Igor Stavinsky at his home in California, in London, and in Hamburg where he conducts an orchestra rehearsal. Includes conversations with a variety of friends and musical collaborators. Includes footage of Stravinsky and Balanchine discussing the Variations (in memoriam Aldous Huxley) and rehearsing their ballet Apollo with Suzanne Farrell.

This portrait of the New York band Sonic Youth marking the band’s 20th anniversary covers its history from the beginnings to today. Numerous video clips and films of live gigs as well as interviews with, and reminiscences of, collaborators over the years will be used to document the musical development of one of the most innovative and influential bands of the last two decades. Contemporaries include former mentor Glenn Branca, composer and conductor of guitar symphonies which had a seminal influence on participating musicians such as Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore, who went on to become Sonic Youth’s guitarists. The band members‘ numerous creative arts projects and other musical activities – in particular improvised music – will be covered in depth.

Shot over a two-year period observing Abbado: a) Rossini, Overture to 'll Barbiere di Siviglia' b) Schubert, Symphony no. 2 B-Major, D. 125 c) Arnold Schonberg, Kammersinfonie no. 1 E-Major op. 9 (Filmed in Venice, Gran Teatro La Fenice, in February 1995, Chamber Orchestra of Europe). a) Richard Strauss, Elektra (Deborah Polaski, Karita Mattila, Marjana Lipovsek, Ferrucio Furlanetto) b) Beethoven, Symphony no 6 F-Major, op. 68, 'Pastorale' (Filmed in the Festspielhaus Salzburg on the occasion of the Easter Festival, April 1995, Berlin Philharmonic). a) Beethoven, Concerto for piano and orchestra no. 3 C-MINOR, OP. 37 (Maria Joao Pires) b) Bruckner, Symphony no. 9 D-Minor (Filmed in Paris, Cite de la Musique, in August 1995, Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra).

The Italian Character: a film within music and about music. The Italian character is the story of one of the most renowned orchestras in the world, enriched by archive material of the last thirty years about the great conductors who have been performing on the most famous rostrum in Rome.

Documentary on conductor Herbert van Karajan, focusing on his early adoption of audio and video recording technology and his impetus to make use of it to preserve his musical legacy for future generations.

This film tells the story of one of the greatest and most controversial conductors of the 20th Century. The Hungarian-born Georg Solti had huge drive, energy and ambition. A combination of willpower and extraordinary talent took him to the peak of musical power and prestige. This film includes remarkably candid interviews which Solti talked with great honesty about his life, challenges and achievements. It also includes new interviews with some of the artists and musicians who worked closely with him.

23-year-old Nikhil comes to Canada from India to find his fortune and is convinced by his uncle to work as a companion and care-giver to Sam, an elderly Jewish man. An unlikely friendship ensues, which gives both men new insight into life.

Scattergood Baines, Coldriver's most popular citizen, neighborly counselor and sly old fox, entices a Broadway producer to Coldriver to see the gay musical extravaganza Baines is staging for the benefit of the U.S.O. He is also promoting the singing career of his latest local protégé, Betty Palmer. There are a few problems but the Sage of Coldriver manages to keep pulling the right strings.

You could be forgiven for mistaking Charlie Siem for James Bond. Whether he's driving an orange Porsche to his cliff-top Monaco mansion, ordering martinis or looking suave in a designer suit, he is a man on a mission. It isn't to hunt down SPECTRE, but to find perfection in everything he does. Whether it's performing on stage, recording albums, or selecting a suit, Charlie demands the best, of himself and others. Despite an entourage dubbed ‘Charlie's Angels', he's lonesome, and complains that people can't relate to him. Danish filmmaker Eva Mulvad, with patience and panache, delves into this life of privilege to find commonalities of ambition and desire.