Lloyd Frost 'The Berlin Waltz' - Live at Artenschutz Theater, Berlin
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Runtime:1 minute 45 seconds
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Completion Date:August 2, 2024
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Country of Origin:Canada
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Country of Filming:Germany
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:Yes
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Student Project:No
Lloyd Frost is an Canadian filmmaker and songwriter whose short films blend narrative and documentary genres. Themes have included totalitarian and authoritarian regimes - past and present - and living with terrorism attacks.
His multiple award-winning 2013 film 'In Everyone's Eyes (en todas las miradas)' and the more pointed director’s cut 'In Everyone's Eyes – El ultimo! (2018) are poetic, slyly subversive looks at free speech and human rights in Cuba. 'The Sun Is Rising' (2015) asks if there is a key to talking about terrorism attacks. 'The Berlin Waltz' is his first short film.
Lloyd's debut album ‘The Sun Is Rising & Other True Stories’ (2015) with genre-crossing tracks was released with a live performance at SAW Gallery, Ottawa and an exhibit of his film-related images at Vistek. He is presently working on his second album, which includes this film's theme song 'Berlin Waltz'. His travel stories and photographs have appeared in The Boston Globe, The Globe and Mail, The Sydney Morning Herald and other newspapers.
Lloyd received his medical degree from McGill University, and specialized in Psychiatry. He lives in Ottawa.
“Give me absolute control / over every living soul” (Leonard Cohen, The Future) describes half the story of an authoritarian State. I’m also interested in how people cope when their words or actions can lead to calamity.
On one of my early visits to Berlin I stayed in the tallest apartment building constructed by the GDR during the years of the Berlin Wall. The concrete ceiling and walls isolated me from my neighbors but street sounds easily passed through the thin windows. I wondered - what had the original occupants heard and seen in those years?
At both the administrative headquarters and the secret Remand Prison in Berlin, exhibits show how the Stasi successfully spied not simply on its own citizens, but also had informers spy on friends and even family members. Then late one night in my GDR flat, as I listened to the S-Bahn from Alexanderplatz pass below, I wrote the title song 'Berlin Waltz'.
I was fortunate three friends of mine had lived in the divided Berlin and have an appreciation for those unusual years. Our locations ranged from period apartments to grand GDR monuments like the Tranenpalast - a checkpoint forbidden to all but a few East Berliners - and the metaphorical doorway for the characters in my film.