Following The Ninth: In The Footsteps of Beethoven’s Final Symphony

Followed by Q+A with director Kerry Candaele!

Written in 1824, near the end of Beethoven’s life, the Ninth Symphony is celebrated to this day for its ability to heal, repair, and bring people together across great divides. The Ninth has become an anthem of liberation and hope that has inspired many around the world. Following The Ninth focuses on the global impact of Beethoven’s Final Symphony:

At Tiananmen Square in 1989, students played the Ninth over loudspeakers as the army came in to crush their struggle for freedom. In Chile, women living under the Pinochet dictatorship sang the Ninth at torture prisons, where men inside took hope when they heard their voices. As the Berlin Wall came down in December 1989, it collapsed to the sound of Leonard Bernstein conducting Beethoven’s Ninth as an “Ode To Freedom.” In Japan each December, the Ninth is performed hundreds of times, often with 10,000 people in the chorus. Following the Ninth gives us insight into the heightened importance of this massive communal Ninth, known as “Daiku,” in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami of 2011.

Following The Ninth travels across the globe with deeply personal and moving stories of individuals who were at the center of these events.

Directed and produced by Kerry Candaele, whose previous films include the documentary A League of Their Own, and Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price, Following the Ninth intertwines these stories with the history of the Ninth itself to create a moving ode to hope, freedom, and the power of art.

Melissa Block of NPR’s All Things Considered interviews Kerry Candaele about the enduring power of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

“The film is beautiful and powerful…If millions could experience its affirming and incandescent message, we might turn around the destructive dynamics that are overwhelming the earth.” – Bill Moyers

“A majestic documentary. Each anecdote builds upon the next to create that rarest of films: a documentary as ineffable and transformative as it sets out to be.” – The Village Voice