ABOUT
The story of Let’s Talk Tacheles was inspired by Nadja Danciger’s personal journey from New York to Berlin in the year 2000. As the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Nadja felt drawn to the city where her mother grew up, as if it were calling her to retrace her mother’s roots and make peace with the past. The need to see it through her own eyes, rather than through the lens of her mother’s, propelled Nadja to move to Berlin. What she found was a city and its people still recovering from forty-five years under communist rule. Witnessing the ongoing rebuilding of Berlin from the ground up, and feeling the collective hope and freedom of the artist movement of the time, Nadja experienced a profound sense of liberty there—one she had never known before.
Years later, Nadja realized she had a story to share with the world, one especially relevant today as civil liberties are being challenged daily across the globe. Encouraged by her husband, Academy Award winning filmmaker Matt Danciger, to “write what you know,” Nadja told her story, beginning with a song.
Inspired by the project, Nadja’s friend and award-winning songwriter, Tracy Scharf, soon came on board as lyricist. And Matt, picking up on the team’s enthusiasm, couldn’t help but get involved. Offering up his talent for crafting great tales, Matt wrote the screenplay, Let’s Talk Tacheles, making Nadja’s story come alive in a whole new way.
Matt Danciger - Screenplay, Book
An award-winning writer, director, and producer, Matt has been working in entertainment since the early 90’s when he garnered acclaim for his Academy Award winning short film, Outside. The short also garnered a Directors Guild Award (1994). Matt has been mentored by Hollywood directors Barry Levinson, Kevin Reynolds, and Terry Gilliam. In 1992, Matt formed Loki Productions, through which he produced and directed videos for HBO, Sony Pictures, the LAPD and Red Bull.
After directing and editing a series of music videos for EMI/Latin, Matt found himself in demand for his editorial skills and command of the new non-linear editing systems. In 2003, he founded Switch Studios in Venice, California, a fully digital production company and post-production facility, where he oversaw over 100 independent features, commercials, and television productions.
As a screenwriter, Matt has written several scripts in development, including The Masks of Time, The Canary, This Island Earth, Lake Monkeys, and Public Storage. He also wrote and directed the documentaries, Father’s Love (2003) and Mission in Kosovo (in progress).
Combining his storytelling skills with time-lapse photography, Matt also has created an award-winning series of corporate videos for the Television Academy, Miller/Coors, Sonos, Yahoo!, and the Los Angeles World Airports, among others.
With a desire to focus his creative energies on projects with educational or positive messages, Matt created, along with his wife Nadja, the Fun Food Network, a non-profit organization that teaches children about health, nutrition, and food science through a series of humorous videos.
In 2014, in conjunction with Nadja, Matt began developing his most ambitious project to date: Let’s Talk Tacheles. Inspired by Nadja’s life experiences and historical events following the toppling of the Berlin Wall, Matt wrote both the screenplay and stage play adaptation. Exploring timeless themes of redemption, forgiveness, and the cost of freedom, Let’s Talk Tacheles is the epic project Matt has been working towards his entire life.
NADJA DANCIGER – STORY, SONGS
Nadja Danciger has been successfully creating, producing, and placing commercial music since 1997, when she co-founded 101 Original Music in New York City. In October of 2000, Nadja moved to Berlin to take on the position of music supervisor for SAT.1 Television Network, where she continued to create, produce and place music for the film and TV markets. She also worked for Extreme Music (an internationally acclaimed production music library) in Berlin, heading up their German speaking division. During these Berlin years, Nadja helped form a Yiddish girl band called The Bagels. As their pianist and arranger, she performed with the band at events and clubs throughout Berlin, spreading the joy of the Yiddish musical repertoire that had gone forgotten within German society after the Holocaust.
Nadja began her piano studies at the age of five in Munich. She moved to New York when she was eight years old and studied piano with the esteemed Juilliard Conservatory Professor Philip Evans. Nadja went on to receive a full music scholarship from Syracuse University, where she earned her Bachelor of Music degree and received the coveted Chopin Award for outstanding achievement in piano performance.
Nadja’s musical talent as pianist, songwriter and producer, have resulted in her songs being placed in TV and film, including placements from Eso Es’s Illuminate, a world music album she co-wrote and produced, on German television and in the documentary, The Journey of an Olive Tree. Nadja’s songs have aired on German, Australian and American radio.
While living in Los Angeles, Nadja worked as a songwriter, performer and piano teacher. Her piano students included Academy Award winning actors Benedict Cumberbatch, for his role in August Osage County, and Reese Witherspoon, for her role in HBO’s Big Little Lies. Nadja currently resides in Berlin with her husband and daughter, continuing the journey of bringing her musical to life.
TRACY SCHARF – LYRICS
Known for her startlingly intimate and insightful lyrics, Tracy’s songs have landed in TV and film, including multiple episodes of VH1’s Couples Therapy, the indie film, Major Arcana, MTV and the Oxygen Network.
Tracy’s songs also have won over fifteen songwriting contests and awards, including the Song of the Year International Songwriting Competition, Unisong International Songwriting Competition, Peacedriven Songwriting Award (given annually to fifteen artists around the world writing music to inspire social change), the Great American Song Contest, and Mike Pinder’s (Moody Blues) Songwars Competition. Her songs also were chosen for the “Songs of Peace in a Time of War,” “Rock Can Roll” (proceeds to Autism research), and “Burnlounge” Compilation CD’s and were licensed to the “Teen Idol” winner in 2012. Proceeds from her song, “We March” have supported the March for Our Lives Action Fund to end gun violence. Tracy also has appeared in American Songwriter magazine.
Honing her writing skills at Cornell University and her songwriting skills at the UCLA Extension Songwriting Program, Tracy was awarded the Concord Records/Barry Manilow Lyric Writing Scholarship and studied under Marty Panzer (lyricist for Barry Manilow, Kenny Rogers and Disney Pictures).
Writing songs described as “profound pop” for more than two decades, Tracy is influenced by the power of music to bring about change. At age eleven, she witnessed her father work tirelessly to emancipate an imprisoned Soviet Jew and help him emigrate with his family to Israel. Seeing how action can make a difference, Tracy continually seeks to create meaningful songs that do just that. Writing the lyrics for Let’s Talk Tacheles, a musical film and stage play about freedom after the fall of the Berlin Wall, has been the ultimate culmination of this pursuit.
Tracy currently resides in Los Angeles, where she writes songs in the Pop, Singer/Songwriter, Adult Contemporary and Country genres.