Closing Selection.

Opening Dec. 28 in our Virtual Screening Room.

Niki Stein brings the life of Ludwig van Beethoven to the screen, just in time for the worldwide celebration of the 250th anniversary of the great composer's birth. The film crosscuts between crucial moments in Beethoven's life, from his early years as an eight-year-old musical prodigy (played by Colin Pütz) in Bonn, then called "Louis" and driven to excellence by his hard-drinking father Johann (called "Jean"); to his young adulthood (played by Anselm Bresgott) as a pupil of Joseph Haydn in Vienna, where he meets his hero Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, becomes inspired by romantic poetry and the revolutionary thinking of the American and French revolutions and falls in love with the highborn Eleonore von Breunig (Caroline Hellwig); to his later years as a famed composer (played by Tobias Moretti), losing his hearing but still hard at work, comfortably well-off but embittered by the missed opportunities in his life.

Please note: this title is available to viewers located anywhere in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC.