Mise en scene with Arthur Penn (a conversation)

Audiences at last year’s Venice festival were treated to something unique from Amir Naderi, the mercurial filmmaker with an encyclopaedic knowledge of film, a big heart and infectious enthusiasm: he personally presented a film he had originally made just for himself. It was over ten years ago that Jonathan Demme introduced Naderi to the legendary Arthur Penn, whose work he greatly admired and knew inside out. For the first time in 2005, and several times subsequently, he aimed his static camera at Penn, sat down behind it and began putting questions to the famous director. The result is a several-hour video recording of a dialogue focusing on Penn’s films, his private life and opinions on important figures of American film loved by both filmmakers. The material is transformed before the spellbound viewer’s very eyes into a one-of-a-kind directorial master class, thanks not only to the exceptional intelligence and understated charisma of the creator behind the films Bonnie and Clyde and Little Big Man, but also to Naderi’s ability to pose questions in an unpredictable manner.