The Painter and the Thief

The Painter and the Thief (2020)

Kunstneren og tyven

When two of artist Barbora Kysilkova’s most valuable paintings are stolen from a gallery at Frogner in Oslo, the police are able to find the thief after a few days, but the paintings are nowhere to be found. Barbora goes to the trial in hopes of finding clues, but instead she ends up asking the thief if she can paint a portrait of him. This will be the start of a very unusual friendship. Over three years, the cinematic documentary follows the incredible story of the artist looking for her stolen paintings, while at the same time turning the thief into art.

Date of release
2020-09-05
TMDB
7.4 / 10 (70)
Runtime
1h 42m
Genres
Documentary
Director
Benjamin Ree

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 5 · Nominations: 0. Including: Amanda Award for Best Film; Amanda Award for Best Documentary; Norwegian Film Critics’ Award; Grierson Awards

The Painter and the Thief is a 2020 Norwegian documentary film directed by Benjamin Ree.

Background

In an interview quoted in The Guardian, director Benjamin Ree stated, “The questions I would like to explore here are: what do humans do in order to be seen and appreciated? And what it takes of us to help and see others.”

The idea for the film came when Norwegian filmmaker Benjamin Ree read news reports about the robbery of two large oil paintings from Oslo’s Galleri Nobe, in 2015. He contacted the artist, Barbora Kysilkova, a Czech now living in Norway, and began documenting her reaction to the theft of her artwork, two paintings entitled Chloe & Emma and Swan Song.

The film started as a short documentary with the filmmakers not knowing what would happen, where the story would go. It was decided to make it a feature film after seeing Nordland's moving first reaction to his portrait by Kysilkova. It was filmed from 2016 to 2019.

The archival footage in the documentary was mostly contributed by a friend of Kysilkova, who had been filming the artist since 2014, including stills and video from the making of the two paintings later stolen. The friend was also at the exhibition, and she participated in the trial.

Kysilkova spoke English in the film, as she didn't understand Norwegian.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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