Award winning film Dear Lara is screening at 2026 Stratford Film Festival
By: Lisa Chester
Lara St. John is in the throws of film festival season and has been travelling with her debut documentary feature Dear Lara to many accolades and, most recently, garnering an Impact award at the Naples International Film Festival (NIFF) in Florida.
St. John is an internationally acclaimed violinist who turns the lens on her own life as she challenges a culture of silence within the classical music world to find that by going public, an overwhelming response chimed in. The film brings together the stories of survivors that gained attention after an article of 2019 was published.
It was the right time and circumstance that lead St. John to go public with her own story in 2019.
“It was a combination of things. It was a little bit sort of the Zeitgeist changing with the ‘Me Too’ movement. Two people in my film, they brought out a big article in 2018 that was inspirational to me because at last the concert master of Cleveland Orchestra was fired and he was removed from his job at the Cleveland Institute, meanwhile everyone knew what was happening. I started thinking about how many times I had gone back to Curtis (Institute of Music) and tried to get them to make changes but they ignored me. So, I thought, the only way to do this was trial by media,” shared St. John of the impetus behind the publication of her story in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
When the story came out, the response from others in music was staggering to her and it made a resounding bang in the classical community and beyond. But the news cycle is short, and St. John felt compelled to find a way to bring all these voices together in a lasting way.
“I wanted to do something that combines all of these people that I’m hearing from and pack it into a really good 92 minute ‘12345678 punch’ so that people can’t look away and they can’t ignore it. That’s what is happening now, it’s just kind of caught fire where I’m basically on the road all the time. Now, with my film, for festivals or at schools, it’s starting to have real world impact,” said St. John.
Having to revisit her own trauma for the film and share in the trauma of others was difficult for her but has been impactful with advocating for the safety of students. Safeguards such as big windows and no locks on rehearsal rooms, background checks and not allowing teaching at home.
“Those are the four big things and schools are dragging their heels on it. It’s not really hard to make really positive change for the safety of your students. It took a famous pianist resigning, a petition signed by 6,000 people, three huge articles in the Toronto Star for us to get the RCM (Royal Conservatory of Music) in Toronto to do a historical sexual abuse of children background investigation and external investigation, that’s how much they wanted to keep it hidden,” St. John said.
St. John will be travelling to Stratford for a Q-and-A following the film which should appeal to any classically trained musician who has been in the business long enough to bear witness to these kinds of stories too.
Dear Lara is screening Nov. 7 at 4 p.m. Tickets or passes can be purchased at stratfordfilmfestival.com. New this year is the Next Gen festival pass that will appeal to those under 30.
Comments