David Rothenberg

An unfinished film is passed along from one friend to another. The dialog between them is a journey crossed by the swarming of the Great Eastern Brood X of periodical cicadas that prophetically emerge every 17 years in the United States, invoking a reflection of a post-pandemic present and our shared futures. A road movie composed of a chorus of voices (both human and non-human), the warnings of history, the power of nature and rebirth.

This film tells the story of David Rothenberg’s efforts to gather together an international band of musicians to cross the species line and make music live with nightingales. Because of its spacious parks and the large number of enthusiastically singing birds, Berlin is the best city to make music with nightingales. Almost everything one plays to a nightingale will encourage him to sing more. These encounters becomes a direct window into the unknown, a touch of communication with a being with whom we cannot speak. The play of pure tones jarring against click and buzz, it all becomes not a code but a groove, an amphitheater of rhythms in which we strive to find a place.