
Larry Weinstein
Directing
Biography
Larry Weinstein is one of Canada's most prolific and accomplished documentary filmmakers, and has been honoured with retrospectives around the world and broadcasts in more than 40 countries. The majority of his 30 award-winning films centre on music and the creative process while his other subjects range from the horrors of war to the pleasures of football. His films consistently push the boundaries of conventional documentary storytelling by employing tools from fiction films, dramatic reconstructions, historical cinematic stylings, and impressionistic visuals. In 2007, Larry received the Cannes MipDoc International Trailblazer Award with the citation, "Weinstein is a deserving awardee for his creativity, originality, and risk-taking, and for pushing the genre of documentary forward."
Known For

When a sudden plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine.
Blindness

American gunslinger Sean Rafferty—aka The Montana Kid—is unable to find someone to duel in a Canadian town where no one understands the brutal code of the American Wild West.
Gunless

Canadian actress and filmmaker Sarah Polley investigates certain secrets related to her mother, interviewing a group of family members and friends whose reliability varies depending of their implication in the events, which are remembered in different ways; so a trail of questions remains to be answered, because memory is always changing and the discovery of truth often depends on who is telling the tale.
Stories We Tell

A collection of vignettes highlighting different aspects of the life, work, and character of the acclaimed Canadian classical pianist.
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould

In Depression-era Winnipeg, a legless beer baroness hosts a contest for the saddest music in the world, offering a grand prize of $25,000.
The Saddest Music in the World

From ancient cave paintings to Twitter feeds and deep fakes, propaganda's rapid progression hasn't compromised its potency. Tracing its effective use by religious figures, politicians and marketers, director Larry Weinstein crafts a persuasive study of the mechanics behind propaganda. This fascinating investigation confronts us with timely questions: If we grow up surrounded by propaganda, how do we know what is true? What risks are inherited by a society tricked into their perceptions? Freedom of speech is critical to a democracy's survival, yet demagogues have consistently exploited that freedom to coerce willing supporters. Contemporary artists, including Kent Monkman, Shepard Fairey and Ai Weiwei, analyze their politically motivated work, creatively co-opting the conventions of disinformation that have permeated their respective cultures. As our platforms for spreading ideas continue to expand in a digital age, dangerous lies have never been better disguised.
Propaganda: The Art of Selling Lies

An irreverent and hilarious spin on opera, domestic drama and the hallowed institutions of love and marriage, Burnt Toast is an hour-long television opera comprised of a series of eight comic operas each depicting a different stage of romantic love. The relationships depicted run the gamut: from the passionate to the fantasized, the bored and of course the dead relationship, each as recognizable as the last.
Burnt Toast

The film explores the relationships that a limousine driver, a doctor, and a real estate agent have amongst each other and with Yo-Yo Ma as he travels to Canada to perform Bach's Cello Suites.
Sarabande

Some of today's most original recording artists perform the work of famed composer Harold Arlen.
Stormy Weather: The Music of Harold Arlen

From Adolphe Sax’s workshop to the legendary times of jazz and bebop, conquering the classical music stages, forbidden by Nazis and Communists and banned by the Pope: in its 170-year history the saxophone has always been the most seductive as well as the most feared musical instrument. Award-winning Canadian filmmaker Larry Weinstein illuminates and mythologizes the story of the saxophone, its most legendary players and its allegedly longstanding curse about saxophonists falling prey to the instrument’s dark powers.
The Devil's Horn

An offbeat, irreverent musical documentary that tells the story of a group of Jewish songwriters, including Irving Berlin, Mel Tormé, Jay Livingston, Ray Evans, Gloria Shayne Baker and Johnny Marks, who wrote the soundtrack to Christianity’s most musical holiday. It’s an amazing tale of immigrant outsiders who became irreplaceable players in pop culture’s mainstream – a generation of songwriters who found in Christmas the perfect holiday in which to imagine a better world, and for at least one day a year, make us believe.
Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas

This film is a docufiction on the great Toscanini directed by well-known filmmaker Larry Weinstein; who pushes the boundaries of conventional documentary storytelling by borrowing tools from fiction films; including dramatic reconstructions and historical cinematic stylings.
Toscanini in His Own Words

A documentary portrait of Chinese pianist Yundi Li that captures the poetic intensity of this young virtuoso as he works with the great Maestro Seiji Ozawa to prepare for his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. This is interwoven with Yundi on tour in his home country, where we meet his family, gain insight into his upbringing and are exposed to the massive scale of piano culture in China.
The Young Romantic

Can a work of art remain relevant 200 years after its creation? Ludwig van Beethoven’s last completed symphony proves it’s possible.
Beethoven's Nine: Ode to Humanity

A Theatrical Documentary Synopsis "Inside Hana's Suitcase", is the poignant story of two young children who grew up in pre-WWII Czechoslovakia and the terrible events that they endured just because they happened to be born Jewish. Based on the internationally acclaimed book "Hana's Suitcase" which has been translated into 40 languages
Inside Hana's Suitcase

Chronicles the true story behind Argo’s Hollywood embellishments by looking at the efforts of the venerable Ken Taylor, Canada’s former ambassador to Iran, who personally sheltered six American diplomats in the operation that became known as "the Canadian Caper."
Our Man in Tehran

Beethoven's Hair traces the unlikely journey of a lock of hair cut from Beethoven's corpse and unravels the mystery of his tortured life and death. The film begins in modern times, when a pair of Beethoven enthusiasts purchase the hair at a Sotheby's auction. The story then looks at the lock's previous owners and culminates in the science that reveals Beethoven's "medical secret". Set to a lush score of some of Beethoven's most glorious music, the film explores the world of forensic testing in sharp relief against the romance of 19th-century Vienna and the horrors of 20th-century Nazi Germany.
Beethoven's Hair

A humourous "domestic opera" about an upwardly mobile couple in their mid thirties who can't resolve an argument about the cap being left off the toothpaste.
Toothpaste
Fury, Anger, Rage, Wrath. No one does these better than God as depicted by the Bible. This short film is an homage to Divine Wrath – God getting up on the wrong side of bed.
God's Wrath

A documentary film about Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich. It focuses on the period between 1936 and 1945, during which Shostakovich composed his Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Symphonies, but also briefly discusses other works in the composer's oeuvre, such as his Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.