HOW DARE THE ANGEL SING – She dies at the Stake but inspires a composer

Directed & Produced by: Fiona McDougall

Stage:
- Production
Location:
- Germany
Updated: February 3, 2026
Project Type:
- Feature,
- Short
Project Style:
- Archival ,
- Narrative/Doc Mix
Theme Subject:

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Logline

HOW DARE THE ANGEL SING – She dies at the stake but inspires a composer blends the haunting story of an unjustly executed woman with that of a Jewish composer murdered by the Nazis—culminating in the emotional premiere of his opera in Magdeburg nearly 90 years later. It’s a deeply moving convergence of Holocaust history, women’s narratives, and the transformative power of art.

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Team

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Team

Fiona McDougall

Director & Producer

Fiona is an experienced video producer immersed in the genre of storytelling from concept through to finished media: documentaries, TV spots and PSAs. At OneWorld Communications, she produces video for online, broadcast and has developed multimedia campaigns in Spanish, Mandarin among other languages for government and non-profit agencies. Fiona has created media for clients such as the US Department Veterans Affairs, American Red Cross, Department of Agriculture among others. She co-directed, produced, story-developed, and shot the interviews for the work sample, How Dare the Angel Sing. She produced and directed the documentary, Finding Snow White (2020), an official selection in the Sonoma International Film Festival among others. For the documentary But I Love the Zine (2019) documentary, she was director, producer and did all the primary filming. It was broadcast on PBS/KQED-TV and appeared in many film festivals. She also produced and shot, Wrestling the Angel (2024). Many of her video productions have won Addy, Telly and other awards. Fiona has also been an international photojournalist working in Italy and Africa and contributing to The New York Times who nominated her for a Pulitzer Prize. "I discovered the story about the discovery of an opera score in a suitcase in a San Francisco attic in our local newspaper, and reflected on the idea of art surviving bigotry, mass fear and hatred. The more research and interviews we did, the more we became increasingly convinced that this story is both compelling for Jewish and non-Jewish audiences like myself".

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Team

Jordan Bogdonavage

Executive Producer

My family (the Malkin's and Lichtenstein's) are Russian Jews who originally came from Poland and what is now Belarus. They fled persecution during the anti-Jewish pogroms in 1906, scattering to England, South America, Australia, with my direct family landing in the United States. Some fled to Germany and western Europe, but fled after WWI. My ancestors were all artisans, potters and painters, with Roy Lichtenstein being a distant cousin.
I resonate with the struggles of the protagonists in this story.
I am a two-time Emmy Award winning producer who has shepherded film and television productions in Los Angeles for the last 20 years, including the award winnning Netflix documentary film THE LION’S SHARE, RIGHT TO OFFEND: THE BLACK COMEDY REVOLUTION, MAFIA SPIES, and LOLLA: THE STORY OF LOLLAPALOOZA for Paramount+ which screened at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1956219/

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Friedemann Hottenbacher

Co-Director, Co-Producer

Born in Nagoya, Japan, and raised in Tokyo, he graduated from the German School Tokyo in 1988 and completed a year of music training in piano and drums. From 1989 to 1996 he studied communication sciences, Japanese studies, sociology, and religious studies at the Free University of Berlin, working during this time as a freelance contributor for various TV broadcasters and on international co-productions with partners such as CBS, NHK, and the BBC. Since 2001 he has been working in Berlin as a freelance writer, director, and producer, directing numerous documentaries on music and the performing arts in collaboration with EuroArts Music International. His recent films include Daiku – 10,000 Japanese and Beethoven's Ninth (2011), Rolando Villazón’s L’elisir d’amore in the Wild West (2012), Plastic – The Real Seamonster (2013), Emil and the Bridge Divers of Mostar (2015), Acting for Freedom – The Battle of the Belarus Free Theatre (2016), The Run (2016) and Teatro Amazonas (2022). Since 2010 he has also been active as a project developer and creative producer for international coproductions at inselfilm produktion, and since 2020 he has served as co-owner, CEO, and producer of inselfilm produktion GmbH in Berlin.

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Jonathan Villet

Story Director & Writer

I’ve found that unearthing the hidden story of another person’s life gives me crucial context to understand that person more fully. Without that context I feel adrift, dependent on intuition and could be drawn to faulty conclusions, even about family members whom I love… My grandmother, a Polish-British Jew immigrated to the USA as a young woman in the 1920s, renamed herself, married successively two non-Jews, and avoided sharing her origins. I knew her as imperious and judgmental, though occasionally hilarious and generous. But I never knew about the pain she felt necessary to leave behind.
I am a seeker of context... The personal context and records available about Eugen Engel after the war and Holocaust are scant. But I found important clues: he was a Jew proud of Germany before it destroyed him, he desired to share his musical imagination widely, sought artistic acceptance, and he chose an outcast non-Jewish woman as the subject for his life’s main work. To imagine some of his story and the story of Grete who was so central to his efforts, I believe, gives crucial context for his artistic life which was creative, tragic but posthumously triumphant. I am honored to add this project to my career as a writer and editor of documentary and “poetic documentary” films WRESTLING THE ANGEL, FINDING SNOW WHITE, and I LOVE THE ZINE, and creating media and communications for the United Nations mainly in Africa with local people.

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Gregor Streiber

Co-Producer

Born in Berlin in 1973. Started his career in media business as a trainee in Film- and TV production in 1993. While studying law he kept working as a freelance producer for another eight years before starting his own company. Since 2001 Gregor Streiber produced more than 400 programs for German and international broadcasters, e.g. ZDF, arte, WDR, BBC, HBO Europe, NHK, IKON, 3sat, from magazine reports, feature documentaries as well as award winning creative documentaries.

He is the CEO of werwiewas medienproduktion and inselfilm produktion. Besides his activities as a producer he has directed several documentaries himself dealing with topics of science, technology and society. Gregor Streiber is regularly invited to panels, pitching forums and documentary workshops.

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Anastasia Shikina

Archival Producer

Anastasia Shikina is a documentary filmmaker and creative producer based in Berlin, Germany. She has worked on documentary episodes focused on music and culture, including projects for the Malta International Music Festival and the Tchaikovsky Competition. In addition to commissioned work, she is developing independent projects exploring cultural themes. Her work is rooted in visual storytelling, with strong experience in international production, research, and post-production. https://anastasiiashikina.com/

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Participants

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Participant

Fiona McDougall

Director & Producer

Fiona is an experienced video producer immersed in the genre of storytelling from concept through to finished media: documentaries, TV spots and PSAs. At OneWorld Communications, she produces video for online, broadcast and has developed multimedia campaigns in Spanish, Mandarin among other languages for government and non-profit agencies. Fiona has created media for clients such as the US Department Veterans Affairs, American Red Cross, Department of Agriculture among others. She co-directed, produced, story-developed, and shot the interviews for the work sample, How Dare the Angel Sing. She produced and directed the documentary, Finding Snow White (2020), an official selection in the Sonoma International Film Festival among others. For the documentary But I Love the Zine (2019) documentary, she was director, producer and did all the primary filming. It was broadcast on PBS/KQED-TV and appeared in many film festivals. She also produced and shot, Wrestling the Angel (2024). Many of her video productions have won Addy, Telly and other awards. Fiona has also been an international photojournalist working in Italy and Africa and contributing to The New York Times who nominated her for a Pulitzer Prize. "I discovered the story about the discovery of an opera score in a suitcase in a San Francisco attic in our local newspaper, and reflected on the idea of art surviving bigotry, mass fear and hatred. The more research and interviews we did, the more we became increasingly convinced that this story is both compelling for Jewish and non-Jewish audiences like myself".

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Participant

EUGEN ENGEL

MUSIC LOVER, COMPOSER, MERCHANT, HUSBAND, FATHER IN 1920'S BERLIN, PROTAGONIST.

Eugen Engel was born on September 19, 1875 in Widminnen (East Prussia, today Wydminy in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship of Poland).
Although Eugen Engel worked as a businessman all his life, his passion was music: as a listener, composer and musician friend. He would visit music stores with his daughter to listen to recordings with her there. It is not known when the young businessman began turning to music and composing. Even though Engel said in a letter in 1938: "I'm not a pianist," he must have had an impressive musical personality.
After 1914 Engels' compositional activities concentrated entirely on his opera Grete Minde. When the National Socialists came to power in 1933, public performances by the Jew Engel were unthinkable.
The last years before he emigrated to the Netherlands in 1939 he spent using his good contacts in Berlin's musical life to get Grete Minde performed abroad. In addition to the exchange with Bruno Walter, correspondence with the conductor Leo Blech and the pianist Edwin Fischer has been preserved.

On March 23, 1943, he was transported in a mass transport along with 1,250 prisoners to the Sobibor extermination camp, where he was murdered three days later, on March 26, 1943, at the age of 67, most likely in the gas chamber.

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Participant

GRETE MINDE

FREE SPIRIT, LOWER CLASS WOMAN IN THE 1600S, PROTAGONIST.

Grete Minde (1593 to 1619) came from a patrician family in Tangermünde. Her father was Peter von Minden, who was banished from the city for manslaughter. Nothing is known about her mother a Catholic Spaniard, which is why she was later considered an illegitimate child. After her father's death, she could not prove her family lineage and felt cheated out of her inheritance. Her attempts to claim her inheritance failed. In 1616, she married Antonius "Tönnies" Meilahn in Stendal, a vagrant with no income who had been repeatedly convicted of theft. Grete earned a meager living as a herbalist and fortune teller.

Following the devastating fire in Tangermünde on September 13, 1617, Grete was among those suspected of arson, her motive allegedly being revenge for being denied her inheritance. She was sentenced to death by burning at the stake on March 13, 1619, and executed on March 22. However, her guilt is disputed by historians. There is a statue of her in Tangermünde where a yearly festival is held in her memory.

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Participant

GRETE'S SPIRIT

1619-PRESENT
The Spirit of Grete, a woman unjustly executed in the 1600s, grieves for Eugen. She finds joy when his opera is rediscovered and premieres 90 years later to public acclaim... as political bigotry resurges today.

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Participant

ANNA SKRYLEVA

Conductor of the opera GRETE MINDE at Magdeburg Theater, Germany.

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Participant

OLIVIA FUCHS

Director

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ULRIKE SCHRODER

DRAMATURG

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JAN AGEE

EUGEN ENGEL'S GRANDDAUGHTER

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Style & Tone

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Background

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HOW DARE THE ANGEL SING – She dies at the Stake but inspires a composer

Logline

Clips

Team

Fiona McDougall

Jordan Bogdonavage

Friedemann Hottenbacher

Jonathan Villet

Gregor Streiber

Anastasia Shikina

Participants

Fiona McDougall

EUGEN ENGEL

GRETE MINDE

GRETE'S SPIRIT

ANNA SKRYLEVA

OLIVIA FUCHS

ULRIKE SCHRODER

JAN AGEE

Budget

Rights

Stills

Our Ask