Exile music is not written by those who life left unchallenged. Walter "Arlen" Aptowitzer is almost 100 years old, and the entire century comes to life in his stories and in his music; from the blue light of the last streetcar of his youth in Vienna to the golden sunsets in Los Angeles. Arlen was forced to flee Vienna in 1938 and immigrated to the United States, a journey that began as one of loneliness and depression. What kept him afloat was his musical talent. He took a job as the music critic for the Los Angeles Times, and stopped composing his own music. He only returned to it years later his works were first recorded and released when Arlen was 92. This sensitive film captures the complex story of a musician exiled, but who finally got to see his works performed late in life.
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Woman in Gold"-storied attorney, Randy Schoenberg, describes the emigration of Jewish-Austrian creatives' in this interview, post-screening of "Walter Arlen's First Century" at the L.A. Jewish Film Festival:
Walter Arlen interviewed at same screening:
Question and Answers with Walter Arlen, director Stephanus Domanig, Randy Schoenberg, and Andreas Launer, the Consulate General of Austria
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