(HI)STORY OF A PAINTING
Other movies
PRIMAVERA
Director: Damiano Michieletto
Primavera is a haunting story set in a vividly recreated Venice, a tale of art and music, opportunity and repression. Damiano Michieletto’s drama transports us to the Ospedale della Pietà in the early 1700s, an orphanage where musically gifted girls perform new works as part of a lucrative orchestra. When Antonio Vivaldi is hired, he identifies Cecilia’s clear talent and makes her first violin, but her fate has been long-since foretold. Tecla Insolia plays Cecilia with a tenderness that cuts through time — her predicament reverberating across the ages. While not completely factual, Vivaldi did teach at the Ospedale for 40 years, and the film is based on a literary novel whose core truth resonates here.
ALL THAT'S LEFT OF YOU
Director: Cherien Dabis
This compelling family drama traces three generations of Palestinians from 1948-2022, revealing the profound impacts of the Nakba. The story begins in 1988 with Noor, a man who joins a protest that turns violent in the West Bank. Decades later his mother, Hanan, recounts her son’s story, starting with the 1948 expulsion of his grandfather from Jaffa. Amid the hardship, the family holds on to the hope of returning to their ancestral home. A love story between Hanan and her husband Salim serves as a beacon of light. Through intimate, moving performances, this film explores how trauma and heritage shape the bonds between a grandfather, a father and son, while filled with moments of joy, love and humor.
SAIPAN
Director: Lisa Barros D'sa
The tensions surrounding Ireland's 2002 FIFA World Cup bid are universal to any country that has dared to hope for footballing glory. Add Roy Keane's unique personality to the mix and you have an exciting, funny, tense drama, superbly performed by the double act of Steve Coogan as Ireland’s shambling manager Mick McCarthy and newcomer Éanna Hardwicke as the Manchester United force of nature that is Keane. This is no underdog story — it would take a braver person than McCarthy to call the eternally prickly Keane that — but directors Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn have fashioned a crowd-pleasing double-act nonetheless. Tip: watch out for a cameo from the Saudi Arabia team.