American Friend

Synopsis

This is a portrait of my friend Michael Niemczyk, whom I hadnt seen for 26 years. The portrait and this film were a way of catching up with all that time. Each stage of the painting seems precious and exciting, even though it's lost. Michael practises meditation, and that was the key to the process, and something so private and so innocent that the eventual portrait both shows it, and conceals it.

The music is the third movement - Andante - of Prokofiev's Duo for Flute and Piano in D major, played by Steven Anderson and Scott Mitchell, recorded and mastered by John Alexander.

Speakeasy