Music documentaries are a tricky genre to pull off. There are classics like “Gimme Shelter” and “The Biggest Night in Pop”—and also wan vanity projects that make you wish you were actually in the audience instead of staring at a screen.
“We Sing Nonetheless” falls into the former category: Boston-based Jewish filmmaker Adam Mazo and creative partner Ben Pender-Cudlip aim to capture the resilience and identity revelations of Jewish Americana band Nefesh Mountain (listen to their wistful, upbeat bluegrass here) with candor and subtlety.
Through their filmmaking company Upstander Project, the pair are known for documentaries that illuminate silenced narratives. Their film “Dawnland” chronicled the removal of Native American children by child welfare authorities and the subsequent Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s investigation. It won an Emmy Award for outstanding research.
Now, the pair trail married musical duo Doni Zasloff and Eric Lindberg and their toddler, Willow, on a cross-country journey. The film is in Kickstarter mode, poised for release but still benefiting from extra funds. The band also performs at Groton Hill Music Center on Friday, May 2.
I chatted with the filmmakers about the joys and challenges of life on the road, capturing a moving portrait of Jewish musicians.
Why follow this band? What intrigued you?
Adam Mazo: I saw them at my synagogue, Temple Israel of Boston, in 2022, when they were touring behind their album “Songs for the Sparrows.” I was just blown away. I experienced what I think so many people have experienced who’ve seen the band. They somewhat jokingly refer to it as “that Nefesh Mountain feeling.” It’s their artistry, the storytelling, the realness, the vulnerability—even something as simple as Doni on stage saying, “OK, the guys are going to do an instrumental, and I’m going to go check on the baby.” Was it real? Was it a shtick? No, it’s really real.
Doni tells a story while Eric is beautifully picking away on the banjo about searching for the graves of Eric’s ancestors in Ukraine, where they both have family. They didn’t find the graves, but they had a revelation that the sparrows they saw in the sky could be their ancestors. The sparrows represent anybody who’s mistreated or treated differently just because of who they are. They put out this call to take care of each other, to look out for each other, to combat any kind of hatred in this really soulful, genuine way. That’s what resonated.
Tell us about the creative process.
Ben Pender-Cudlip: It started with something a little unusual for a documentary. We had a big sit-down conversation with Eric and Doni, where we talked very openly about what it would be like to make a documentary with them, gave them lots of visibility on our process and talked about all the things that often go unspoken. In documentary film, filmmakers often have a tremendous amount of power. We have the power of representation over the people we’re filming, and Adam and I have been really invested in rebalancing those power dynamics.
We began on as level a playing field as possible. We tried to give them a full sense of what we knew about how the process would go, what we didn’t know and got all their questions out in the open. It began a beautiful, collaborative process where they have some agency. With trust, we were able to witness a lot of very personal moments behind the scenes, out in public, and to really capture their full story over two years. Our very first shoot was in Rockport, Massachusetts. Doni went to check on the baby. I got my camera. I’m following her into the green room, where baby Willow is having a meltdown. On day one, it was like: “This is going to be real.”
Tell us about the title, “We Sing Nonetheless.” What does “nonetheless” refer to?
Mazo: It’s a line from their song “Tree of Life,” which they wrote after the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. It was so clear to us that this is really how they live; that’s their mantra. That’s the way they show up in the world. I love the way people can hopefully see themselves in that and think about the ways they also sing in the shower, sing in the car, despite whatever horrible things might be happening in the world. There are those moments where we just sing like crazy, because it makes us feel good. We need to be able to take care of ourselves and sustain our souls so that we’re fortified for whatever fights are ahead in our personal lives, or out there in the world.
What Jewish messages thread through the film?
Mazo: Eric, Doni and I [as Jews] would agree that we’re wrestling with how to show up as Jews in the world right now. I admire them because they’re openly Jewish every night on stage. I hope people will see them wrestling with how their Jewishness does and does not show up in their music, and wrestling with this question of: Sometimes they want to just be a band, and sometimes they want people to know they’re a Jewish band, but they don’t want to be defined by that.
Like any great Jewish story, there will be more questions than answers. Our nonprofit is called the Upstander Project. The throughline is, for the past 15 years, we’ve convened and documented courageous conversations, and that’s some of what we’re doing. I hope it’s made visible in a way that feels real and authentic to people, and hopefully does not feel like tropes or stereotypes. A big part of the film is going to be exploring their lives in this journey of the fracturing of American Jewish communities happening around us. This was not initially the point of the film. We started filming in late 2022. A lot has changed, and a lot has shifted in how we show up out in the world, talking about the issues of the day.
Are there any moments that were particularly poignant for you while filming?
Pender-Cudlip: I think there’s also a really deep strand of tikkun olam in their music. You may see them play the song “Better Angels,” which is a call for all of us to pay attention to our better angels on days like this. There have been a lot of profound moments. They have a song called “Little Longer.” It’s a very looping song about all those different moments in life where you wish something would go on a little longer: your childhood, your time with your parents, your kids growing up, going on to college. It’s a very family-oriented song and has a lot to do with their beautiful, blended family. They have Willow, who travels on the road with them, and two older kids in college.
Last year, we were in Nashville, in this legendary recording studio where they were recording with bluegrass musicians. At one point, I counted, and the people in the room had a grand total of 26 Grammy Award wins or nominations. Willow is in the recording studio, in the control room, and they’re singing this song, and I’m filming Eric and behind him is the big glass window to the sound booth. This song is very emotional. And then I see Willow creep into frame in the recording booth, behind the glass, and she puts her fingers up on the glass and she’s just being incredibly cute. Eric can’t see her because she’s behind him. And then Doni looks over, and she just completely loses it. She can’t even make it through recording, because all of the feelings in the song were in front of her, right at that moment. It was this collision where their music is their family, their music is their heritage, their music is positivity that they want to put out in the world.
