The Painter And The Thief

Screening With a plot plucked straight of an Ocean’s 11 movie, the central hook of Benjamin Ree's documentary soon takes a backseat to the emotional bond between a painter and the man who stole her work.

Benjamin Ree | Norway | 2020 | Unclassified 15+

The year’s most moving documentary. – The Guardian

When a film’s inciting incident is an art heist, certain expectations are established for the viewer. The brilliance of Norwegian filmmaker Benjamin Ree’s documentary The Painter And The Thief’s is not just how it’s able to subvert those expectations, but blow them up entirely. Artist Barbora Kysilkova becomes fascinated when two men steal her artwork from a gallery in a daring crime. However, when the duo are arrested the quest to track down her paintings and understand the technical specifics of how they managed to pull it off are quickly discarded when she meets one of the thieves, Karl Bertil-Nordland, at his trial. Agreeing to pose as a model for one of her portraits in penance, the darker themes in Kysilkova’s work start to bleed into a natural and genuine friendship between herself and Bertil-Nordland.

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The Painter And The Thief

Screening With a plot plucked straight of an Ocean’s 11 movie, the central hook of Benjamin Ree's documentary soon takes a backseat to the emotional bond between a painter and the man who stole her work.

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