Produzione - Production: Ava Bridge Motion Pictures Pty Ltd
Produttore - Producer: Scott Hicks, Susanne Preissler
Sceneggiatura - Screenplay: Scott Hicks
Montaggio - Editing: Stephen Jess
Fotografia - Cinematography: Scott Hicks
Sound editor: Peter D. Smith
Musica - Music: Philip Glass
Distribuzione - Distribution: The Film Sales Company
tel: +001 212 481 5020, contact@filmsalescorp.com

Nel luglio 2005, il regista ha iniziato a lavorare al documenatrio su Philip Glass per celebrare il suo 70esimo compleanno. È riuscito sorprendentemente ad avere accesso al suo universo creativo, alla sua vita familiare, a venire in contatto con i suoi maestri spirituali e con i collaboratori di sempre. Per restituirci il ritratto di un artista unico.

In July 2005, Scott Hicks started shooting a documentary about the composer Philip Glass to celebrate his 70th anniversary in 2007. Allowed unprecedented access to Glass' working process, family life, spiritual teachers and long time collaborators, Hicks gives us a glimpse behind the curtain into the life of a unique artist.

In 1984, my then teenage son Scott took me along to a midnight screening of KOYAANISQATSI in Adelaide, and a new addiction was created. From that moment I became a fan of Philip Glass music. Early in 2005, Jim reminded me over dinner that Philip would be turning 70 in 2007. He asked what I felt about making a documentary about him. I decided right away to do it, without any thought of how or when.

Together with close friend and colleague, Susanne Preissler of Independent Media, my company started to cash flow the project. I bought an HDV camera and flew to Nova Scotia where Philip was on vacation with his family. This was intended as a stopgap until I could afford to hire a cameraman, but what happened was that Philip started a dialogue with me behind the camera. It became apparent that the low impact of minimal crew allowed for a real intimacy and immediacy, which I did not want to lose.

Philip being Philip, there was never a dull moment. Every day there was something new: a fresh collaboration, renewal of an old friendship, rehearsals for a world premiere of a new work, recordings of film scores (including my own No Reservations), sessions with other film directors, time out with his infant sons. Gradually pieces of his rich and varied life revealed themselves as Philip generously opened the doors into his family and friendships, as well as the extraordinary tapestry of his evolution from early days in Paris to the downtown New York art scene of the 60's and 70's. As the material accumulated - more than 120 hours of it - the pressing question for me became, 'How on earth am I going to edit this thing?' Enter Steve Jess - a fine editor I had worked with in New York on various commercials.Recently, people have started asking me, 'What is it about you and obsessive pianists?' I have no explanation to offer, except perhaps if I'd practised piano more as a child, this obsession would have been subsumed!