Nowadays, the silent film The City without Jews is considered to be one of the most important Austrian productions of the years between the two World Wars. Based on a novel of the Jewish writer and journalist, Hugo Bettauer, the film shot in Vienna in 1924 recounts the nightmarish prospect of the cultural and economic poverty of a city after driving out the local Jewish population.

After lost fragments were rediscovered at a Parisian flea market in 2016, the Austrian film archive was able to restore the movie thanks to a crowd-finding initiative. More than ninety years after it premiered, an almost complete and authentic version of The City without Jews can be presented once more. In collaboration with the Wiener Konzerthaus, among others, the Ensemble intercontemporain, the Barbican Centre London and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Sinfonieorchester Basel has commissioned a recomposition of the background music from Olga Neuwirth.