My name is Mahler, Gustav Mahler

Who was Mahler and what do we really know about him? As a matter of fact we don’ have any ‘live’ material on him, no voice, no orchestral recordings, only a recording on Welte Mignon ( a kind of prepared piano) on which he plays some of his works in his own  transscription, that is all! But we do have ‘dead’ material that comes to life in this documentary film, the photographs that has been taken at various stages of his life. We look at him, he looks at us and we would like so much to hear what he is telling us at that particular moment. Of course Mahler speaks to us via his music, but who was the man behind the incredible images that loom up from the scores? At that point Joost Honselaar and myself decided to bring Mahler to life, a life, based on the photographs and the letters he wrote, all personal memories that would reveal the real Mahler. In order to achieve the best way of letting him speak the memorable words:  My name is Mahler, Gustav Mahler we needed an actor, who would be Mahler, only Mahler, no one else. Mahler speaks to us directly in a series of Monologues, telling us about his life, starting with his childhood and ending with his death. Keywords being: I love life but death has always been around me. The famous Dutch actor Gijs Scholten van Aschat , becomes more and more Mahler as the film advances till you think, at the end, he is Mahler.