A film about Beethoven's ghost

It is set in Ottawa, filmed over the course of a year at a private home here and at Elmwood School (a posh and old-fashioned independent school for girls) in Rockcliffe Park. (I've been inside Elmwood and know people involved with the school, so it all looked familiar.) One scene takes place at the National Arts Centre downtown, and there are some outdoor scenes shot in the local parks and woodland. At the end of the film an aerial sequence was filmed from a drone.

This is how the creator of the film sums up the plot:

A 12-year-old disenfranchised girl is visited by the ghost of Beethoven because he can’t stand the way she is destroying his music at the piano. Both her mom and her music teacher have failed to raise her musical interest level. Meanwhile, her friends have been trying to lure her to the soccer field or to practice gymnastics — without much response. It’s the power of music and Beethoven’s bombastic belligerence which shakes Sarah out of her doldrums and leads her into a local piano competition where she plays his Moonlight Sonata. Sarah is rejuvenated by these life experiences and is finally able to celebrate with her friends on the soccer field.

Sarah MacDougall Meets the Ghost of Beethoven is the title of this film. I was in the audience in Freiman Hall at the university when Music and Beyond screened it, and when the director Kevin Reeves (who also conducts a local choir) answered questions about it. It was fascinating to hear him explain how he prepared for the at-home scenes, where the girl is practising the Beethoven pieces on her piano:

...most of it was shot in my living room, around the piano, where Beethoven coaches Sarah, yelling at her frequently. For nearly a year I had seven windows covered in black, like a studio, so that we could control the light for the piano scenes. We even had to simulate a massive lightning storm.

The ghost, played by one of Mr. Reeves' friends, well cast in the part and charismatic, especially once he'd donned the wig, apparently, enters the story quite early and from then on plays the dominant role in it. There are some recognisable actors. Julian Armour, Music and Beyond's Director, plays the part of the music teacher, Mr. Edwards. "Call me Tom!" he says, in a scene with the girl's anxious mother. He plays his own personality, but is just right in this role. The mother is played by another friend of the director's.

The girl herself was well coached and could play the piano very musically too. Her own schoolmates (from the school's Drama Club!) acted as her schoolmates in the film. Because the project took a year, there were times when the actresses had grown up a year between one scene and the next, but the fading in from one sequence to the next was so cleverly done that I didn't notice. "Sarah" hugs the ghost in the scene where she says goodbye to him, and tells him she loves him, a touching moment. There is of course a didactic message in this story. At the end of it, on the sports field, the girl lists all the other classical composers she'd like to discover. In future, I'm sure the film will regularly appear as a teaching tool.

Mr. Reeves has a twinkling eye and a great sense of humour. At one moment, in the scene played at the NAC, another recognisable Ottawa musician and personality, Matthew Larkin, is mistaken for Beethoven's ghost, because (in reality, and especially when seen from behind) he has similar hair.

I and the old gentleman sitting beside me chuckled throughout and thoroughly enjoyed this event.

In case you'd like to watch the film or skim through it yourself, I attach the whole YouTube recording here: