Feature Documentary

Touch the Sound
A sound journey with Evelyn Glennie

A film by Thomas Riedelsheimer
Lola German Film Award
BAFTA Award Scotland
Locarno Critic´s Week Award
Leipzig Grand Prize
One World Festival-
Best Sound
distribution /contact

Filmpunkt GmbH
Director, DoP, Editor
Thomas Riedelsheimer

Music
Evelyn Glennie
Fred Frith
Za Ondekoza
This
Horazio Hernandez

Camera Assistant
Dieter Stuermer

Sound
Marc von Stuerler
Gregor Kuschel

Sounddesign
Christoph von Schönburg

Soundmix
Hubertus Rath

Producers
Stefan Tolz
Leslie Hills

Co-producer
Skyline Prod. Ltd,. Edinburgh

Production Managers
Heinz Hausner
Andrés Jauernick
Dave Tarvit
Markus Breimaier

Unit Managers
Michele Owen
Tom Hayes
Marie Miyayama
Malte Jaspersen
Noel Rea

Stephanie Hills

Commissioning Editors
Walter Greifenstein, BR
Jochen Kölsch, ARTE
Erkki Astala, Eila Werning
YLE

In cooperation with
Bavarian TV and Arte,
YLE Finland

Supported by
FilmFernsehFonds Bayern
Filmförderanstalt FFA
Bundeskultusminister
BKM Filmstiftung NRW Scottish Screen
© 2004 / 99 and 53 min / 35mm (S16mm)/ 1:1,85 / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS

Touch the Sound - A Sound Journey With Evelyn Glennie

A remarkable journey with Evelyn Glennie, one of the world´s foremost classical percussionists. She is profoundly deaf but nevertheless able to listen...
Sound is felt through every sense in our body. In Touch the Sound we see, hear and truly feel the beat of the universe.

"A feast for the senses."
Jack Mathews, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Educational" is the dirty word of documentaries, but "Touch the Sound" educates in exhilarating ways, ways that are immediately applicable to how one lives one's life. Riedelsheimer's circular take of a Glennie snare drum solo in the middle of Grand Central Terminal or his precise selections from the din of midtown Manhattan, or the clop of feet at a Cologne airport, all broaden the viewer's awareness of where and what sound is and how many make up the street-score of our lives. He also provides a window - or the aural equivalent - into how Glennie sees and feels the world, as a series of vibrations that she channels into music.

Riedelsheimer avoids any "triumph over adversity" cliches, but there are moments of great music - with avant-guitarist Fred Frith or a team of kodo drummers in Japan - as well as scenes of great heart: Glennie's instruction of a deaf girl at a special school on how to play the bass drum - and what it means, and how it works - is the kind of moment that could make a blind man cry.
John Anderson, NEWSDAY NYC

This impressionistic documentary is a mystical exploration of the sensory world as experienced by a musician who lost most of her hearing as a teenager.
Stephen Holden, NEW YORK TIMES

A potent and imaginative creative biography of virtuoso percussionist Glennie.
Kenneth Turan, LOS ANGELES TIMES

Arrestingly beautiful.
Timothy Knight, REEL.COM

Bold and often thrilling film.
Tom Keogh, SEATTLE TIMES

Exquisitely beautiful for the eyes as for the ears.
David Sterritt, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

We listen to this film more intensely than is usually the case.
Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES