"What We Can Know About Edmond and Basile” Film Screening and Concert

The new documentary film, “What We Can Know About Edmond And Basile,” directed by Sascha Just, is a story of hidden histories and a resurrection. Its stars are 19th century New Orleans composers Basile Barès and Edmond Dédé. Barès and Dédé were Creoles of Color – Dédé a free man, Barès born into enslavement. The film features, among others, contemporary pianist Oscar Rossignoli and Givonna Joseph, the current artistic director of OperaCréole.

In addition to being selected for its world premiere at the 2025 New Orleans Film Festival last October, “” has been awarded the “” by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. In celebration of the film’s LEH Award, which shall be presented to Ms. Just in Baton Rouge, LA on March 24th, an exclusive screening of the film, followed by a brief talk-back with the director and an intimate concert by Oscar Rossignoli, will take place at the New Orleans Jazz Museum at 7:00pm on Friday, March 27, 2026. Doors open at 6:30pm for seating. Tickets are $10 advance or $15 door, and available via the Jazz Museum website, or at walk-up, while seats remain available. Rossignoli shall perform music from the film rarely heard before, alongside his own creative interpretations and improvisations of long lost and unfinished works by these greats, for only the second time in public.

• 6:30pm Doors Open for seating

• 7:00pm Showtime

• 8:30pm Artist Talk with Director Sascha Just

• 9:00pm Live Musical Performance with Oscar Rossignoli

ABOUT THE FILM:

Against the pressures of racial injustice, both Barès and Dédé wrote and performed operas and concert pieces popular with both black and white audiences, challenging the notion that classical music has been an exclusively white domain. Yet, since their lifetime, their compositions have not been performed, and some have never been presented to the public.

New Orleans musicians are now resurrecting their works. One of these artists of note is Honduran-born, New Orleans-based pianist Oscar Rossignoli, who is presenting a jazz-inspired concert of Barès' unpublished dances, while the ensemble OperaCréole, led by Givonna Joseph, has recently staged the premiere of Dédé's long lost opera, "Morgiane," with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra at the historic St. Louis Cathedral.

From rehearsals to costume fittings, What We Can Know About Edmond And Basile documents the path to these premieres as a springboard into the composers' extraordinary lives and Creole culture. Along way, the film meets with Dede’s and Barès’ descendants, an art collector of Creole paintings, a piano tuner who has made surprising discoveries about Barès, and historians who dig deep into the hidden histories of Edmond and Basile.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:

Director Sascha Just is a New York-based filmmaker, born and raised in Berlin.

Prior to What We Can Know About Edmond And Basile, Sascha produced and directed Ellis (2022), the first feature-length documentary about New Orleans pianist Ellis Marsalis Jr., Food Truck Kings Astoria for the French-German network Arte about immigrant food truck vendors (2023), and Swampbirds about the impact of coastal erosion in Louisiana on Cajun culture, also for Arte (2024).

No stranger to New Orleans, Sascha also produced and directed the short documentary Big Chief – airing on PBS – about New Orleans Black Indian Chief Darryl Montanta's path to Mardi Gras, and the short documentary Ambassadors about a competition for the title Jazz Ambassadors to the US.

Sascha’s films have screened at DOC NYC, St. Louis International Film Festival, Krakow International Film Festival, See the Sound/Soundtrack Cologne, the American Documentary Film Festival, RiverRun International Film Festival, USA Film Festival, Katra Film Series, Segal Performance Film Festival, New Orleans Film Festival, and numerous universities across the United States.

Sascha holds a B.A. in Film and an M.A./PhD in Performance, Theater and Film Studies from the City University of New York (CUNY). She teaches in the Communications Department of Baruch College, CUNY.

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