
Reluctant not only to have the spotlight on her but to be heralded as a trailblazing woman, Orin O’Brien is the fabulous prodigious world-renowned double bassist who sits at the heart of Oscar nominated documentary short The Only Girl in the Orchestra from producer turned director Molly O’Brien. Their shared surname is no coincidence with Orin’s niece and filmmaker Molly having to bide her time for over a decade before finally arriving at the right confluence of events to re-introduce the idea of a film about her life to Orin which she accepted…under certain conditions. The Only Girl in the Orchestra, streaming now on Netflix, not only manages to enchantingly portray Orin’s career beginnings as the first female musician in the New York Philharmonic but also captures her true ‘joie de vivre’. Molly, working in essential collaboration not only with her aunt but her entire team, takes us into the heart of Orin’s love affair with her instrument, her city and the passion she holds for her chosen vocation. Continuing our series of Oscar 2025 nominee interviews, DN speaks to Molly about taking care when re-thrusting her aunt into the limelight she never sought, trawling through hundreds of hours of archival material to find a few elusive golden images of Orin performing and how her film came to be acquired by the global streaming giant that is Netflix.
I know from my research this has been long in the making and you have been asking your aunt to make this film for 10 years! I’d love to know how the story has evolved into the beautiful piece we can now watch.
I’ve always wanted to make a film about Orin, probably for longer than 10 years, to be honest. But in 2015, I got a camera and some other one-man band equipment, put it in a backpack and followed her on tour with the New York Philharmonic in Europe. We went to London, Dublin, Luxembourg, Düsseldorf and she never allowed me to take the camera out. So, that was about 10 years ago and after that experience I just kept asking. I wasn’t relentless about it, but probably once or twice a year I’d ask, are you ready? Are you ready? And she’d always say “No”. And then when COVID hit, she realized she wanted to retire. She was about 86/87 years old. At that point, she said, “Yes, you can follow me now”.
Originally I wanted the film to be about her last year in the New York Philharmonic and I wanted to go on tour with her and really center it at Lincoln Center but COVID threw a spanner in the works which actually, was a real blessing in disguise for the film anyway, not for the world, of course. What it ended up giving me was this retirement story, moving out of her apartment and this transition that all of us, if we’re lucky enough to make it into our 80s, go through. What is that chapter of life? What does it look like? How do we navigate it? So the film became more than just a film about the first woman ever hired by the New York Philharmonic. It’s a good story, but it became more about the choices you make along the way, not just about music and Orin’s career, but about her philosophy of life and how to live a happy life. I think it became more universal because of all the obstacles.

When Leonard Bernstein hired her as the first woman in the New York Philharmonic to play full time in 1966, she was thrust into the spotlight, double bass or not, and didn’t have any choice.
I found myself so drawn to the way you play with the central tension around her fierce independence and self, yet being recognised and highlighted for being the only woman.
The central tension in the film is between taking the spotlight and being a soloist versus choosing to be part of an ensemble. She deliberately chose the double bass, which is a lower register instrument. It’s not a solo instrument. She wanted to be part of a section and not a principal and player, not a soloist. She made that choice deliberately. When Leonard Bernstein hired her as the first woman in the New York Philharmonic to play full time in 1966, she was thrust into the spotlight, double bass or not, and didn’t have any choice. Of course, this film is doing that to her again and that doesn’t go unnoticed by me or anybody else who’s involved with the film.

How did you find the move from producing to directing on what is clearly a very personal project with your aunt who didn’t really want to be filmed?
Well, to answer the second part of your question about making a film with a reluctant participant, I would argue that reluctant participants are some of the best documentary subjects. When you get someone in front of your camera who just really wants to be on TV or on the big screen it can be pretty inauthentic. At its extremes you’re looking at reality TV and people who are looking for fame and for the spotlight. On the other hand, I’m very aware of the conversation that the documentary world especially is having right now about participant care and collaboration.
I made a promise to her that the double bass, these handsome Italian and English men that are in her apartment, and there’s one small Frenchman too, would be more than supporting players.
When Orin finally decided to retire during the pandemic and agreed to make a short film, the reason she said yes was because she was thinking about what the film could do for classical music, what the film could do for the double bass. I made a promise to her that the double bass, these handsome Italian and English men that are in her apartment, and there’s one small Frenchman too, would be more than supporting players. They would be the philosophical foundation of the film, which they are because they represent playing in an ensemble, being the floor that holds up the orchestra, which is something that Orin says to her students in the film. I promised her that teaching and the double bass would be central and I promised her that we would have an exchange and that she would watch the film in stages. I would show her a rough cut then I would show her a fine cut and that’s what it became, it became a collaboration. So in terms of working with a reluctant participant, I think approaching the creative process as a collaboration and not as like I’m the director and you’re my subject and you have to do everything I say is and was the key for The Only Girl in the Orchestra.
Most Popular
And then to answer the first part of your question in terms of becoming a director and stepping into that role after decades of producing. I loved it. I want to do it again, it was a total joy but it was also terrifying. That’s not only just because my subject was my aunt, a family member, and I didn’t want our relationship to suffer, my love I have for her is more important than any movie. But the directing part was equally terrifying. Producing is a risky thing to do, you put your neck out there for your projects, but it’s really the director who’s got their neck super exposed. If anything goes wrong, it’s the director’s fault. If everything goes right, the director gets all the credit. I think both of those things are false but it’s the way our industry views filmmaking. This film was very much an ensemble. My producer, Lisa Remington, and my editor, Monique Zavistovski, especially were creative collaborators. But it was a team of filmmakers as well, it was very much a conversation and collaboration.




As you mentioned, the instruments play a central role and I love the way they are captured and the camera work in the film. How did you plan the film’s look and visual style?
We wanted to cover Orin’s whole life in 35 minutes. That was extraordinary in terms of the development of media and the different cameras that we used over the years. There’s 16mm archive in there, there’s 35mm for her parents’ films, there’s iPhone footage. There’s Hi-8 camcorder footage and then there’s the contemporary footage which was captured by our amazing verité cinematographer, Martina Radwan, who can work with very little equipment and a very small footprint. When I was first designing and thinking about the look of the film, I really wanted it to be like classical music, very formal, locked off tripod shots. But I talked to Martina and to my producer and the editor and they all agreed that it would be much more dynamic to have a lot of the interviews as conversations, and for the conversations to be handheld and dynamic, which is unlike the more traditional aesthetic of classical music. We went for a more of a homemade hand stitched look, except for the double bases. These handsome men that live with Orin, we really wanted them to look gorgeous and delicious. The disco ball scene and the beauty shots of the instruments in her apartment were all made for the film. I wish there wasn’t iPhone footage in there, but I just happened to be at her retirement party without the crew so my husband grabbed his iPhone and shot that scene. Then I just happened to be at Lincoln Center with her when she went back which was good as filming at the Lincoln Center isn’t easy. They’re not great with crews in there and it’s extremely cost prohibitive so I just grabbed my iPhone.
This is what the film’s about, the double basses are there but they’re never spotlighted.
How much footage did you have and how did you develop that into the film’s final form?
We shot in 2021 through to 2023 and I think we shot 60 hours of footage so not unmanageable. But in order to find archive of Orin playing with the New York Philharmonic on stage at Lincoln Center and elsewhere, we had to look through hundreds and hundreds of hours of performance footage, which is in their archive. Every year on New Year’s Eve, the New York Philharmonic plays live on PBS and it was almost impossible to find shots of the bass section. Again, this is what the film’s about, the double basses are there but they’re never spotlighted. So there were very few shots of Orin on stage playing. The ones that we found are gold, they’re great, but it took a lot of sorting. Our archival producer, Lauren Wimbush, was extraordinary at combing through all that stuff, it was very labor intensive.

As you were working in such close collaboration with Orin on the film were there any parts she didn’t like?
Yes, and they were all musically related. She would point out if something was out of tune and ask for a different take. No picture notes, no editorial notes, but a lot of music notes. We had to change almost every scene where you see her playing or someone else playing the double bass. Because none of us are professional musicians and Orin is and could hear things we couldn’t hear. So her notes were great although, sometimes irritating but she was right. Our core audience is going to be double bass players and they’re going to notice if something’s out of tune.
Our soundtrack is almost exclusively double basses and during that screening, the whole theater was vibrating with the double bass sound because it’s as much a physical vibration as it is a sound. You can’t really hear the double bass without feeling it.
Where did you first see the film together with an audience?
Our premiere was at Doc NYC in November of 2023 and we were all there. It was wonderful. The best screening we had was in February of 2024 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. They have a festival in February and we were the closing night film along with another documentary film Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman which they had just restored. directed by Judy Collins and Jill Godmilow about the first female symphony conductor Antonia Brico. It was a wonderful curatorial pairing between these two films. That theater is so beautiful and the floor was vibrating with the soundtrack. Laura Karpman, our composer and arranger arranged Mahler and Beethoven for double basses. Our soundtrack is almost exclusively double basses and during that screening, the whole theater was vibrating with the double bass sound because it’s as much a physical vibration as it is a sound. You can’t really hear the double bass without feeling it. That screening at MoMA was just the most fantastic. It’s such a New York story and Doc NYC and MoMA are such New York institutions it was wonderful.

I’m sure everyone would love to know, how did the film come to be picked up by Netflix?
I just feel very lucky about the Netflix of it all. So we played five or six festivals and I approached Cinetic as a sales agent. There were two young women there, Isadora Johnson and her colleague Alexis Galfas. Isadora’s mom is a composer and conductor and she loved the movie. Dare I say, while a lot of the other sales agents liked the film, they just didn’t want to take it on but Isadora got it to Netflix and they picked it up. I feel very lucky, especially now that we’re in the awards campaign as it’s invaluable to have Netflix behind you. Then, of course, it’s available wherever Netflix is available, which means it’s been translated into over 30 languages and it’s in most countries in the world.
Orin’s story is so remarkable because she didn’t have any role models. There wasn’t anybody so I hope she and the film can serve as an inspiration for all sorts of people.
It’s a beautiful film, classical music, an eccentric protagonist, a female centric story which is so wonderful to see as an Oscar nominated film.
We’re all thrilled, there’s nothing more to say than that! We’re absolutely thrilled. During that morning and the announcement in Los Angeles, my producer, Lisa was in Utah at the Sundance Film Festival and I was here in New York with my family, and we went on Zoom and had it live streaming on another computer. As you know, they announced it alphabetically. And the only girl in the orchestra was the last one! My hands went over my mouth and I was hugging and kissing my daughter and husband and the chihuahua was barking – it was a great moment. Orin’s story is so remarkable because she didn’t have any role models. There wasn’t anybody so I hope she and the film can serve as an inspiration for all sorts of people. Also for producers like me who want to direct, I know there are lots of them. It’s risky but worth it in this case.
We just watched this and wanted more!! It is a beautifully directed documentary and we hope that it wins the Oscar. There is a short segment near the beginning with Orin and a gentleman working on a piece together. I found myself humming along to it familiarly, but couldn’t place it. If you know where I might find that information, I’d be grateful! Thank you!