Top American actor and director and social and political activist Sean Penn will participate in a public question-and-answer session with fans at the upcoming Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF).

The session, entitled ‘In Conversation with Sean Penn’, will be held on December 13 at the First Group Theatre, Madinat Jumeirah, from 7 pm to 8 pm.

Penn, whose career spans nearly three decades, more than 45 films and notable successes as producer, actor, director and screenwriter, is one of the Festival’s three Lifetime Achievement honorees this year.

Two-time Academy Award winner and five-time nominee Penn is perhaps best known for his searing performances in Dead Man Walking, Sweet and Lowdown, I Am Sam, Mystic River, Milk and older genre classics Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Carlito’s Way.

Penn’s humanitarian work - including his reportage from Iran and Iraq in recent years, and tireless campaigning on behalf of the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the earthquake-ravaged Haiti – has also won numerous admirers around the world.

In addition to the public conversation, DIFF 2010 is screening two path-breaking movies from Penn’s extraordinary repertoire: Sweet and Lowdown (1999) and Into the Wild (2007).

The seventh edition of Dubai International Film Festival 2010 will be held from December 12 to 19, in association with Dubai Studio City. – TradeArabia News Service