Defiant Requiem

About The Film

Concentration camp prisoners in Terezín use the power of music to rebel against their Nazi oppressors in DEFIANT REQUIEM, a celebration of resilience, artistic uprising and dignity in the face of inhumanity.

Located in a garrison city outside Prague, Theresienstadt served as a transit point for Central European Jews – many of them artists and intellectuals – en route to Polish extermination camps. Despite hunger and disease, inmates sustained themselves through various forms of creative expression. The ultimate act of rebellion occurs when passionate young Czech conductor Rafael Schächter leads a makeshift choir of 150 fellow inmates in performing Verdi’s Requiem, a death knell reimagined as a powerful message of hope and justice, in front of the Nazi high brass and Red Cross inspectors.

Narrated by Emmy-winning actress Bebe Neuwirth, DEFIANT REQUIEM brings this moving chronicle to life through survivor recollections, evocative reenactments and animation, and footage from a soaring 2010 memorial concert arranged by veteran conductor Murry Sidlin.