Alfred Brendel at LEFFEST in 2012

18.06.2025

Brendel, who had a deep connection with cinema from a young age – watching Chaplin and Buster Keaton short films projected on 8mm film at home – and who, as a teenager, spent his weekends watching films at the theatre his father managed, served that year as a jury member alongside actress and director Fanny Ardant and cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton.

He also took part in the symposium "Art vs Culture and Cultural Industries", held at the Belém Cultural Centre (CCB), and the festival dedicated a special programme to him, screening several films about and featuring Brendel, directed by Mark Kidel: Alfred Brendel in Portrait / Simon Rattle (2001), Alfred Brendel on Music: Three Lectures (2011), and Set the Piano Stool on Fire (2011).

Additionally, he was given a carte blanche, in which he selected three films that had a lasting impact on him: The Phantom of Liberty (1974) by Luis Buñuel, If... (1968) by Lindsay Anderson, and Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966) by Karel Reisz, which he discussed in a conversation available here.

In a wonderful session held at the Chemistry Amphitheatre of the Polytechnic School, Alfred Brendel and actor Willem Dafoe read poems from Collected Poems of Alfred Brendel: Playing the Human Game, published by Phaidon. The reading can be viewed here.

The festival mourns his passing and sends its condolences to his family and friends.

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