1. How did you meet Dan Perjovschi and what did you aim to capture in your film about him?

I met Dan in Paris while he was at the Récollets and I was attending the Ateliers Varan. I wanted to make a film about the relationship between the contemporary art scene and society, and I felt Dan and his art to be a paradigm of the critical sense applied to these systems.

When I first began to discover his creative process I thought we could collaborate on two different “rough materials”. He was working on the level of information (press, internet etc), and I would develop the narration through his actions, and at the same time I could work upon the level of the common reality that surrounds us, with some intersections that interrupted the narration.

In the space of the film we could somehow return the man to the centre of things, at least in the imaginary axis of the sight. I think that this was our central point of contact.

2. I love the way you mirror Dan’s interest in the little things that often get over looked, the beauty in the tiny details, through your patient way of filming. For example, lingering on the way a person walks or drinks, that captures their character beautifully. Did you find on being with Dan, that you were looking at things around you in a different way?

Dan’s interest is beyond the things themselves. For example when you see him looking around, you could never know what he is really looking at. That’s why when you compose the frame around what he sees, this frame should be introducing a question. Because the amazing thing happening there, is not in front of his eyes but behind them.

We each see the reality around us in different ways. Dan revels the inner paradox of human systems. Regarding this film, I desired to practice a gesture of empathy.

3. How does Dan see your film? As an extension of his art, the creation of an entirely new piece of art, or as something very different altogether?

Dan really accepted my film happening, without any control and I deeply appreciated this.

4. If you could pick anyone, what other artist would you most like to make a film about?

I would never make a film ‘about’ anyone, it would be impossible. I would make a film ‘with’ someone.

Few would argue that the Italians are passionate people, rarely hesitant to express themselves in whatever way they deem fit. Alfredo de Guiseppe’s Hidden Art lays out a platform for four such exuberant souls, lovers of life who escape their humdrum realities with fervent outpourings of their creative essence. We have the horticulturalist cum folk poet, the plasterer who compulsively models strange miniature enclaves, the level crossing signalman who not only paints à la Pollock but also composes verse in praise of his creator (who also, troublingly, appears to refer to himself in the third person) and finally, the hospital orderly who has discovered her talent for the stage, craving challenging roles and risking her reputation by taking on the role of (gasp) a lesbian detective.

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According to his producer Mike Wallington, John Samson took some pride in the fact his 1977 film Dressing for Pleasure was banned by London Weekend Television. A revealing portrait of a select number of fetish devotees unblinkingly filmed in their favourite leather gear, the documentary’s frank, full-frontal study of this generally taboo practice was always likely to worry jittery broadcasters. But the most striking thing about Samson’s documentary is its careful refusal to sensationalise its subject matter.

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