St. John residents will soon have an opportunity to view "Speaking in Strings," the Academy Award-nominated documentary feature film produced by independent filmmaker Lilibet Foster, a native St. Thomian.
And if plans work out, the whole Virgin Islands will get to hear the sound track album and watch the video before anybody else.
The documentary about a flamboyant violinist was shown on St. Thomas on Feb. 11 as part of the premiere Virgin Islands International Film and Video Festival at the Reichhold Center for the Arts.
To capitalize on the Oscar nomination, a first-ever distinction for a Virgin Islander, festival coordinator Karrl Foster began looking into ways to promote the St. Thomian's work locally. He has arranged for a public showing of the film at the Westin Resort in mid-March and is also seeking to have it shown on St. Croix and brought back to St. Thomas.
And he's working on arrangements to make the Virgin Islands the first place in the United States where the sound track CD and the video version of "Strings" will go on sale.
Although classical musicians, like classical music, often do not appeal to a mass American audience, "There a market for what Foster has done," Karrl, who is unrelated to Lilibet, said. He termed the work "the most passionate documentary I have ever seen."
Violinist Najda Salerno-Sonnenberg is the subject of "Speaking in Strings," produced by Lilibet Foster and directed by Paola di Florio, who grew up with the violinist, early last year. "Nadja is an unusual character, Lilibet says. "She's a classical violinist in a very unusual way." Sonnenberg is controversial because of the dramatic style she employs in performance, a demeanor Lilibet Foster says is not always well received by a conservative classical music culture. The film depicts a year in the musician's life in which a number of significant events take place.
Lilibet Foster, who is co-owner of an independent film company in New York, returned to St. Thomas to present the film and another documentary, "Soul in the Hole," at the festival. She knew then that "Speaking in Strings" had made the so-called "short list" of potential Oscar nominees. Four days later, on Feb. 15, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominees — and she had made the cut.
Foster, the daughter of John and Claire Foster of St. Thomas, says she got the news that day as she was on the telephone making an inquiry about a teaching job at a college in New York. It was "the biggest surprise ever," she recalls.
