The Conductor

The Conductor (De Dirigent, 2018) is a Dutch biographical drama you can watch online on iFILM. New York, 1926: Willy Wolters is twenty-four, Dutch-born, raised in America, and determined to conduct symphonies. The obstacle isn't a rule — it's a reflex. Orchestras simply don't put women on the podium.

Director Maria Peters follows Willy across years of private study, trips to Europe, and auditions that go nowhere, as she accumulates credentials no one wants to recognize. Christanne de Bruijn plays her without sentimentality — this is not one dramatic victory but a decade of refusing to stop. Benjamin Wainwright co-stars. The film's patience mirrors its subject's own.

Willy Wolters eventually becomes Antonia Brico — the woman who raised the baton in front of major ensembles on two continents and founded her own orchestra when the established ones kept the door shut. Stream The Conductor (2018) on iFILM.