Movements is a cinematic portrait of the remarkable composer Ursula Mamlok, by Anne Berrini. Mamlok’s work was featured in the new dance work Stray Bird, performed later that week by Miro Magloire's New Chamber Ballet.

For Ursula Mamlok, music was not merely the meaning of her life; composing offered her solace at a time when the world was collapsing around her. In 1939, she and her family barely managed to escape from Germany to Ecuador in time with little more than her prized piano. A year later, at the age of seventeen, Mamlok ended up in New York, with no money and unable to speak any English. And she remained there for almost sixty-six years. In 2006, Ursula Mamlok returned to Berlin, the city of her birth, a decision that presented her with new challenges – both musical and emotional.

In this documentary portrait, the filmmaker Anne Berrini offers a sensitive examination of the music that has played such a central part in Mamlok’s life. She observes the composer at work in Germany and then accompanies her to New York, where Mamlok prepares for the League of Composers’ Season Finale, meets old friends and revisits that central and critically important period of her life.

The screening was followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Anne Berrini and choreographer Miro Magloire.