(HI)STORY OF A PAINTING
Genre
Animation, Documentary and Art
Running time
30 minutes
Year
2022
Language
English
Country
United Kingdom
Director
Gaëlle Mourre, Quentin Darras
Bio
Producer
Charlotte Mikkelborg, Gaëlle Mourre
Cast
Cerys Matthews
Scriptwriter
Gaëlle Mourre
An animated 6DoF VR series aimed at engaging young audiences with art by creating intimate, gripping and relatable experiences focused on the human stories behind some of the world’s greatest art and artists. Each episode uncovers themes from the artist’s context that resonate with contemporary life. This episode, The Light in the Shadow, explores the extraordinary story of one of today’s most celebrated Baroque artists: Artemisia Gentileschi. We follow her extraordinary journey as she navigates a time and world where women have virtually no rights and are essentially men’s property, and becomes one of Europe’s most celebrated and in-demand painters of her time. She painted herself into posterity within her own lifetime—this story is about how she rose up against the odds and impressed the whole of Europe with her talent, and how continues to capture our imaginations today.
Other movies
FARASAN BOAT 128 KM AWAY FROM ANCHORAGE
Director: Mowaffaq Alobaid
In 2016, a group of young men headed out on a short fishing trip around Farasan Island, off the coast from Jazan. Intending to be away for only an hour, they were soon driven off course in thick fog, heading unknowingly towards the war-torn Yemeni border. As they realized where they were and tried to head back, their boat ran out of fuel. For 90 hours, they drifted without food or water, constantly at risk from passing pirates or being shot from the shore. There were many moments when they despaired of surviving; then came a glimmer of hope.
CROCODILE TEARS
Director: Tumpal Tampubolon
On a Crocodile Farm in West Java, Indonesia, a young boy reaches puberty, and his problems with his mother start. Johan, a young man tethered to his mother, Mama, by invisible but unbreakable chains, dreams of freedom yet remains under her suffocating grip. Isolated from the world, their life on the farm is a tense routine of survival and emotional manipulation, disrupted only when a young woman’s arrival threatens the delicate balance. As Johan begins to see through Mama’s relentless hold, he confronts the painful reality of their bond: is it love, or is it tyranny? Director Tumpal Tampubolon dives deep into the tangled web of family loyalty and control in this haunting drama raising timeless questions about family, power, and the cost of independence.
LITTLE JAFFNA
Director: Lawrence Valin
“You’re not in Paris any more. You’re in Little Jaffna.” During the civil war in Sri Lanka that raged from 1983 until 2009, Tamils in the Parisian district of Little Jaffna were forced to contribute towards buying arms for Tamil Tigers. Aya, ostensibly a grocer, leads the ruthless extortion gang that bleeds the community dry. Michael, a straight-shooting young police officer with Tamil roots, is sent to infiltrate the organization but as he befriends the gang’s members at terrible risk to himself, he starts to see the issue in a more nuanced way and feels his loyalties shifting. Valin combines the theatricality of Tamil movies with the hard edge of new French cinema, using largely non-professional actors, in this spectacular thriller.
AGORA
Director: Ala Eddine Slim
A blue dog and a black crow narrate the strange story of three revenants – people who are not quite dead, but not alive either – who resurge in a remote town, reviving the unsolved mysteries around their respective disappearances. Fathi, the local police inspector, is on the case, assisted by his friend Amine, the local doctor. What begins as a conventionally recognisable crime thriller, however, becomes more of a mood piece once Omar, a police investigator from the city, arrives to shine a light on what has happened and is overwhelmed by the irrationality of the chain of events. At once absurd and disturbing, Agora gradually reveals itself as both poetic fable and a political commentary on the state of Tunisia.
