NetherlandsWinner of the Best Documentary award (for directors who have made more than two features) at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, The Master and His Pupil is an engaging glimpse into the art of acclaimed Russian maestro Valery Gergiev. Recording a master class that the renowned conductor gives to three budding protégés in Rotterdam, director Sonia Herman Dolz (This is Me, MIFF 2000) beautifully captures the passion, humour and authority Gergiev invests in his work. The gripping drama of the learning process is underscored by the scope of music'from the pieces performed, to the brand-new score written especially for the film by Paul M. van Brugge. Hovering behind his pupils like an artistic father, Gergiev cajoles and corrects them towards an ultimate goal: the music, and how to guide the orchestra's musicians towards its realisation and expression.

'I hoped that The Master and His Pupil would become an exciting, unpredictable, dramatic, comical, lively, instructive, and, above all, human document about an historic encounter between a living legend like Valery Gergeiv and his pupils.' -sonia Herman Dolz

D Sonia Herman Dolz P Paul Hosek WS Hasten Slowly Films L Dutch, English, Spanish w/English subtitles TD Video/Col/2003/87mins

Sonia Herman Dolz was born in Madrid, Spain in 1962. Films: Only the Brave (1993), Black Tears (1997), This is Me (MIFF 2000).