Joana Mallwitz - Momentum (2024)

The film begins with a scene of conductor Joana Mallwitz preparing scores at home in silence. After the introduction, a presenter on ZDF’s Morgenmagazin introduces Mallwitz as “a conductor in a man’s world.” We then see her performing at the Konzerthaus Berlin. Just before she takes the podium with the orchestra, the image fades out and the film jumps back two years to Nuremberg. From then on, the story is told chronologically, until the narrative circle closes at the end. First, we see Joana Mallwitz in Nuremberg, preparing various projects after the birth of her child and leading a rehearsal with the Nuremberg State Philharmonic. From 2018 to 2023, she was general music director at the Staatstheater Nürnberg. A flashback, using archival footage, shows episodes from her childhood and youth. Mallwitz speaks of the great importance of Schubert’s Symphony in B minor (“Unfinished”), which she says was a major reason she became a conductor. Over the course of the film, Joana Mallwitz is seen guest conducting leading orchestras in various European cities, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival, and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam. After a press conference in Berlin, an RBB interviewer asks her how it feels to be the only female chief conductor leading a Berlin orchestra. The film ends with Joana Mallwitz’s inaugural concert as chief conductor and artistic director of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, in which she conducts Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. In the final scene, she is seen embracing her husband on the terrace outside the Konzerthaus in Berlin.