Song Searcher

North American Premiere

Moyshe Beregovsky (Moses Beregovsky), a musician and scholar, crisscrossed Ukraine with a phonograph in hand during the most dramatic years of Soviet history in order to record and study the traditional music of Ukrainian Jewry. His work began in the 1920s and led to his arrest and imprisonment in a Stalinist labor camp in 1950. Most of those he recorded on hundreds of fragile wax cylinders were shot by the Nazis and tossed into countless mass graves. Ultimately, Beregovsky succeeded in saving the musical heritage of the centuries-old Yiddish civilization. He rescued the Living Voice of his people from the flames of the Holocaust but paid for it with his life.

Accompanying the film premiere is a discussion with director Elena Yakovich, producer Natalie Azarov, and executive producer Victorina Petrossiants, and moderator Cantor Lisa Segal. To view the conversation please click here.