Chopin: I Am Not Afraid Of Darkness explores the idea of music being an antidote to violence and suffering. Here the three protagonists talk about playing Chopin in some of the world’s darkest places.

Chopin: I Am Not Afraid Of Darkness is a documentary that tries to answer a simple question: can music heal emotional wounds? The film follows three pianists as they prepare to perform Chopin’s music in three different places which have witnessed violence and destruction and, in doing so, it uncovers traumas that the pianists themselves live with.

Fares Marek Basmadji, a Syrian pianist living in London, emigrated from his native country as a young teenager. In the film, he visits a Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon, and later performs his concert in Beirut, just one month after it was devastated by an explosion in 2020.

“Chopin’s music struck a chord during his lifetime, and it brought his native Poland’s political struggles to the world’s attention,” explains Basmadji.  “But this was only possible because he was an exile himself and someone that 19^th-century elite society cared for – and he used that platform to take his message to the whole world. His legacy remains strong, and I think that artists and musicians are vessels that can shine the light on attention-worthy issues and news when they use their platform well.”

Nowadays, Basmadji works as a software engineer and has moved on from his career as a concert pianist, so playing again for an audience of people who were living through incredible suffering was particularly poignant for him. “I embraced the changes that happened in my life and accepted the fact that I no longer perform; however, this project made me realise how lucky I was to have had the privilege of being a concert musician in the first place,” he admits. “I recently became a dad and find immense joy in playing for my daughters. Now I get to share music with others again, which is what I loved and had missed the most.”

South Korean classical pianist Jae-Yeon Won

Across the globe lives Jae-Yeon Won, an internationally acclaimed South Korean classical pianist. He lives in Paju, just 30km away from the border with dictatorial North Korea. “Living so close to the border, I think I mostly live oblivious to reality, but what I always feel is a close but distant feeling,” he observes. “My generation only knows the Korean War from our history books or videos, and the sad reality is that we don’t know much about what life is really like in North Korea since the information they share with the rest of the world is very limited.”

Won’s Chopin concert takes place on Seungil Bridge, which was started by the communists and completed by South Korea. “When I went to the border bridge with North Korea I felt pure sadness,” he shares. “I thought that people living in disconnected North Korea would feel a sense of peace if they could hear Chopin's music, just like the audience at the concert on the bridge. If someday we are reunified, I want to go to the North often to share my music. That is my hope.”

Polish jazz composer and pianist Leszek Możdżer

Leszek Możdżer, a famous Polish jazz composer and pianist, is the third protagonist of this inspiring film. The cameras follow him as he goes about his daily life in a small rural Polish village. He is particularly inspired by nature and takes long barefoot walks in the woods and plays a piano outside under the shade of the trees. His concert takes place in the Auschwitz concentration camp, a place where 1.1 million people were killed.

“This is a place to be handled with care as it evokes many powerful emotions,” says Możdżer. “However, I was not afraid of this challenge, because I know that music is medicine if it is administered with good intentions and in the right doses. I think that the energy that was generated fulfilled its mission, but I do not want to reveal the details. “You will be able to find out about it by watching the film,” he concludes.

Chopin: I Am Not Afraid Of Darkness will be showing at Spazju Kreattiv on November 1 at 7.30pm and November 11 at 6pm. Documentary producer and CEO of Inbornmedia Maciej Pawelczyk will be participating in a Q&A panel after the November 1 screening. The film was produced by InbornMedia and Play Button Media in co-production with TVP, the National Cultural Centre, and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. It was co-financed by RAPA Korea and the Polish Film Institute. The screenings are supported by the Polish National Foundation.

For more information and tickets, visit here.