Those who saw and loved the excellent documentary “Orchestra of Exiles” at last year’s St. Louis Jewish Film Festival will want to see “Return of the Violin” this year. It is a documentary that   also will appeal to fans of serious music and particularly to fans of wunderkind violinist Joshua Bell. 

The violin in the title is a Stradivarius owned by Bronislaw Huberman, a Polish Jewish musician who founded the Israel Philharmonic and whose story was described in “Orchestra of Exiles.”

“Return of the Violin” is the opening night film for this year’s festival, the second of a double feature. 

It is not essential to have seen the documentary from last year to enjoy this one, as “Return of the Violin” recaps Huberman’s heroic efforts to rescue Jewish musicians from Nazi-controlled Europe while building Israel’s first orchestra. The main focus of the film, however,  is the complicated, surprising story of Huberman’s treasured Stradivarius. 

Huberman first achieved fame as a child prodigy whose violin talents won him acclaim across Europe. The boy’s skill in playing Brahms’ difficult violin concerto earned him the gift of the Stradivarius from the composer. 

Unfortunately, Huberman’s treasured violin was stolen during a trip to New York in 1936 to play Carnegie Hall and it remained lost for five decades. In this film, it makes a return to Huberman’s birthplace in Poland for a special concert. How that all came about, and how it united many people’s stories, is the subject of this intriguing film.

Bell, another former musical child prodigy and one of the world’s premier violinists, provides the music for the film, as he prepares for a concert performing the Brahms’ piece that won Huberman his Stradivarius. Bell will play the very violin Huberman lost, but how the violin came to Bell is also part of the fascinating, strange-but-true story that this inspiring documentary explores.

Director Haim Hecht intercuts footage of Bell and the local orchestra rehearsing for the concert with interviews and archival footage, with voice-over narration. Among those interviewed are the man who organized the concert, a survivor from the same time who immigrated to New York, made a fortune and returned to his native Poland to give back.

The number of surprising, even unlikely interconnections between the violin and the various people in the film are sometimes jaw-dropping, the kinds of things that might make one scoff in a fictional film. But this remarkable story of music, musicians, heroic actions and the Shoah is all true, making for an engrossing story well worth the audience’s time. 

The film concludes with excerpts from Bell’s concert on Huberman’s violin, a perfect ending for an amazing journey.     

‘Return of the Violin’

7 p.m. Sunday, June 8

Mostly in English, with some Hebrew and Polish with English subtitles; Includes a reception with music by the Rosewood Ensemble string quartet and sweet treats before the show.