Alma Mahler

For centuries it was unusual for women to be composers, but times have changed in 19th century. She was an Austrian composer, author and "companion of famous men".

She is one of the great "might-have-beens" in music history. She was the daughter of a painter, Emil Schindler, who died when she was a young teenager. She eventually studied composition with Alexander Zemlinsky and produced a number of songs in a late-romantic idiom.

In the 85 years of her life, Alma Mahler-Werfel experienced two World Wars and changes in civilization as had never previously occurred. From turn-of-the-century Vienna to the America of the 1960s, where she used to hold court like a fallen monarch in exile, the film «Alma» is to shed light on all stages of her path through life, a life in which the cultural history of half a century is reflected.