Present A  
                                      
                              Production  
                                  
                 MOONLIGHT SONATA  
                   DEAFNESS IN THREE MOVEMENTS 
                                  
                        A Film by Irene Taylor Brodsky  
                                  
                                                     
                       In Theaters This September 
                           Running Time: 89 minutes 
                                  
                    **Official Selection of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival** 
                                  
                          www.moonlightsonatadoc.com 
                                  
                      For additional information, please contact: 
                               Falco Ink. 
                         MoonlightSonata@FalcoInk.com  
         
                           LOGLINE 
                               
       Moonlight Sonata is a deeply personal memoir about a deaf boy growing up, his deaf 
       grandfather growing old, and Ludwig van Beethoven the year he was blindsided by 
       deafness and wrote his iconic sonata. 
         
       Their lives weave a story about what we discover when we push beyond loss. 
         
                               
                         LONGSYNOPSIS 
                             
         
       “Pssssst!” Our story begins with filmmaker and mother Irene Taylor Brodsky audibly 
       trying to get her infant son’s attention. He is already going deaf, but she does not yet 
       know it. 
         
       The HBO Documentary Film, Moonlight Sonata is the visceral and intimate story of a 
       deaf boy growing up, a deaf man growing old, and perhaps the world’s most famous 
       deaf person, Ludwig van Beethoven, who crafted a sonata that would resonate across 
       time and cultures. 
         
       The story begins with Jonas’ first years of life going deaf, undergoing surgery for cochlear 
       implants, and then discovering a newfound world of hearing — and music. 
         
       Fast-forwarding, now 11-years-old, Jonas has gotten cochlear implant and can choose 
       when to be deaf and when not to be. He is struggling to learn the first movement of the 
       Moonlight Sonata, an anguished composition Beethoven wrote when he began going 
       deaf. Beethoven’s story is told by entering a nineteenth century animated world alive 
       with  watercolor  imagery,  haunting  soundscapes  and  original  score  and  witnessing 
       Beethoven descend, painfully, into the loss of something that gave him so much beauty. 
       Jonas’s  teacher,  Colleen,  is  the  film’s  de  facto  music  historian  guiding  us  through 
       Beethoven’s  state  of  mind  at  the  time  of  writing  the  piece.  Meanwhile,  Jonas’ 
       grandparents, Paul and Sally, who have been deaf for nearly 80 years, watch their 
       grandson learn to play piano and feel the gulf that lies between them. 
         
       As  Jonas  delves  deeper  into  Beethoven’s  sonata,  the  story  becomes  an 
       intergenerational, inter-era tale of deafness. Paul becomes increasingly forgetful and 
       frustrated: he is losing another sense - his mind. As Jonas navigates deafness and Paul 
       dementia, Beethoven’s process of writing Moonlight Sonata and unearthing creativity 
       from loss serves as a poetic analogue. Like Beethoven, grandfather and grandson must 
       tune into the voice inside of themselves to survive a world that was not built for them. 
         
       Much like the iconic piece after which it is titled, Moonlight Sonata is a story about loss 
       and, more importantly, what we discover when we push beyond it. 
                            
                            
                            
                            
                            
                            
                            
                            
                            
                            
                            
                            
                            
                            
                            
                            
                            
                            
                            
                            
                            
        
                            
                    
                        DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT 
                                 
        I can hear, but deafness consumes me. I am a daughter of deafness and, now, a mother 
        too. After I discovered my son, Jonas, was going deaf as a toddler, my sound designer 
        told me we could reproduce his gradual disconnect from hearing. As a filmmaker, that 
        enthralled me. As a mother, it frightened me. 
          
        I’ve been down this road before. My first feature documentary, Hear and Now, about my 
        deaf parents’ problematic journey into the world of sound, showed me how much film 
        can be a catalyst for empathy. Creating a first-person narrative about the people closest 
        to  me  was  particularly  challenging,  at  times  painfully  self-aware.  But  the  honesty 
        impacted me and my audiences. 
          
        The film went on to win the Audience Award at its 2007 Sundance Film Festival premiere, 
        a Peabody Award and debuted on HBO. My parents and I were invited to present the 
        film  across  Europe,  in  Korea,  Abu  Dhabi,  and  Russia.  People  approached  us  at 
        screenings, and wrote letters afterwards, sharing their own feelings of isolation, the 
        desire for connectedness and their newfound understanding of deafness and all that it 
        encompasses. 
          
        So when my son told me he wanted to learn the Moonlight Sonata, composed by 
        Beethoven as he went deaf, I was cautious but resolute, and began filming. Then, my 
        father developed dementia, and soon their three storylines revealed an eerie parallel. 
        Paul’s loss of mind was a clue to what Beethoven might have felt losing something so 
        precious to him. As Jonas learned to play the sonata, I read Beethoven’s letters and 
        listened to his canon over and over again. I felt assured that my son could find his own 
        true expression, shaped by deafness, just like Beethoven did. 
          
        What excites me most about Moonlight Sonata is our use of cinematic tools to delve into 
        the senses. We portray sound and memory through animation, and we use vast archives 
        of home movies, verite footage, immersive soundscape and original score to craft a rich 
        mosaic of what it means to find vital expression in the midst of loss. 
          
        This film is also rooted in music and the way we hear. We have curated an eclectic palate 
        of sound and music, from 18th century Beethoven sonatas to contemporary hip-hop.