William Kentridge — Oh To Believe in Another World

William Kentridge, Oh To Believe in Another World, Edizioni Periferia, 2023

Three volumes on the film William Kentridge made to play with a live orchestra performing Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony.

The Lucerne Symphony Orchestra invited the work, and it premiered with the symphony at the KKL Luzern on 15 June 2022. The 53 minute film is set in an imaginary Soviet museum left empty, built as models to Sabine Theunissen's designs. Actors in costumes by Greta Goiris, made to look like puppets, were later edited into those rooms.

The first volume runs through the film as stills that follow the symphony's four movements. The second is given to the actors. The third turns to the models, and to the puppets Goiris made for the museum's vitrines, which were the starting point for the costumes.

The third volume also holds Kentridge's essay on how the film was made, Marina Frolova-Walker's text on the Tenth Symphony, and a conversation between the orchestra's director, Numa Bischof Ullmann, and its chief conductor, Michael Sanderling. Camillo Paravicini in Basel designed the set.

In 2023 Marian Goodman in New York showed the film as a five channel projection.

The Guardian called it "gripping".

Three hardcover volumes, 472 pages in all (272, 96 and 104), 19.2 by 21.6 cm. English. Available online and in our shop at Vester Voldgade 106, Copenhagen.