Simon Wallfisch

Jeremy Deller has a special ability to make people feel comfortable. This includes individuals who have varied and at times disturbing opinions. ‘Putin’s Happy’ does not address the feelings of the Russian leader directly, but instead documents the protests around Parliament Square in the wake of the vote for the UK to leave the European Union. The result is a montage of 42 minutes of the wilder, scarier, madder ends of Brexit. As well as allowing people to reveal some of their motivations through interviews, Deller unpicks the far-right visual imagery and accompanying narratives seeping into the protests through flags, banners, tattoos and scrawled messages. The often very angry Leave protestors are peppered with some surprisingly optimistic Remainers. These provide a light at the end of a very strange, very contemporary and very worrying tunnel.

The stories of Jewish cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who survived Auschwitz, and of star conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, who worked with the Nazis, provide insight. The film centers around two people who represent musical culture during the Third Reich - albeit in very different ways. Wilhelm Furtwängler was a star conductor; Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, the cellist of the infamous Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz. Both shared a love for the classical German music.

Music is not "just" music. It can have immense power in good or evil. This documentary by Maria Stodtmeier and Isa Willinger highlights interesting and very current themes about the links between music and politics.