The Kaiser of Atlantis

This allegory of the prevailing madness and death during the Third Reich, tells the incredible story of composer Viktor Ullmann, who in 1943 wrote and rehearsed a chamber opera about a tyrant bent on waging endless war in the most unthinkable place: in the Nazi concentration camp of Theresienstadt. He never saw its premiere; he was assassinated in Auschwitz two weeks after the first dress rehearsal. Thanks to a miraculous chain of events, the original score was saved from destruction and premiered in Amsterdam in December 1975. On the stage of a large European colosseum, its message is heard louder than ever. Today, at yet another important point in human history and through an intricate structure that achieves an exceptional narrative fluidity (full of nooks and crannies that speak about the nature of the human being), the film articulates in a luminous, heart-wrecking complexity the power of artistic creation to question, transform or escape reality.