PART ONE

ORSON REHEARSED

Orson Welles’ heart has just stopped.

We enter his mind in this moment, on the threshold between life and death.

In the bardo Orson’s thoughts unspool as a stream of consciousness that loops back on itself, like a Möbius strip. Three avatars onstage in the theater of his mind are paired with three oneiric films within the film as he shuffles through his memories, loves, regrets, like a magician preparing for one last trick.

Is he ready for what comes next? 

PART TWO

9/10: LOVE BEFORE THE FALL

The myths of Orpheus and Charon are interwoven with the entirely sung story of four friends dining in an Italian bistro who are fated to perish the next morning in the attack on the Twin Towers.

At meal’s end, through magical realism, the restaurant’s mysterious strolling violinist is revealed to be Charon, hand extended, awaiting payment.

Complying, each reconciles with death, and departs to the sounds of the next morning’s busy signals and the calls of first responders.

PART THREE

I HEAR AMERICA SINGING

A documentary film crew dogs Broadway composer Robbie Doerfler’s final days as he and his friends Roger and Rose prepare for a critical backers’ audition. Robbie’s world unravels as he compulsively recontextualizes musical and narrative tropes to make sense of his life. 

Blending operatic and filmic conventions, music history, fantasy, and documentary, the operafilm explores themes of creativity, identity, and mortality, culminating in a poignant and thought-provoking question: “Where do we go when we go up — is it Heaven?”