Nigunim: 63 min, colour, sound, Germany, 2023
Like Moritz Gagern's composition, the film set to music by Christoph Brech also consists of 23 individual sequences, each of which is attributed to a piece of the composition. Just as the music can be divided into three compositional groups, Brech's film sequences can also be assigned to three different groups.
While listening to the pure transcriptions of the composition, viewers see how a rod puppet is designed, cut out, and assembled. Accompanied by the music of the extended transcriptions, the film shows how the puppeteers prepare for the performance and how they interact with the puppets. The completely freely composed pieces are accompanied by the puppet show on screen, as seen by visitors to the puppet theater. These film sequences depict the stages of a traditional Jewish wedding.
Just as in music, different time levels and spaces are interwoven in the film. On the one hand, the historical level of a Jewish wedding is depicted in traditional rites, e.g., the bride's cleansing bath, the drawing up of a marriage contract by the rabbi, or certain types of dancing. Added to this are the preparatory period of making the puppets and the present moment of the puppeteers in action. The spaces presented are the theater workshop, the backstage area of the puppet theater, and the screen for the shadow plays of the rod puppets, with each of these locations filmed from a different perspective.