To be in Dialogue with the Film : With Neil Brand and Lillian Henley at the Masterclasses at Pordenone Silent Film Festival

Since over ten years, the Pordenone Silent Film Festival hosts masterclasses in which renowned pianists every day teaches, discusses and play silent films together with two selected young pianists who in this way get an intensive week of training the art of accompanying films. The masterclasses are open to the participators of the festival, and in this article we become part of the audience in following some days of the masterclasses. The observations are coupled with interviews by one of the initiators of the masterclasses, Neil Brand, and one of the students this particular year, Lillian Henley, in a discussion about how to play to silent films today, and what this special art means to moderns audiences.