NEON nabs worldwide rights to Sundance-winning doc ‘The Painter and the Thief’
The Painter and the Thief by Benjamin Ree (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Benjamin Ree)
NEON announced today that it has acquired worldwide rights to The Painter and the Thief, directed by Benjamin Ree, which made its World Premiere at Sundance where it won the world cinema documentary special jury prize for creative storytelling. The documentary earned rave reviews out of the festival with critics hailing the film as “engrossing” and “incredible.” The Painter and the Thief was produced by Ingvil Giske and executive produced by Academy Award winning filmmaker, Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom).
The Painter and the Thief follows an extraordinary story of friendship, art and human connections. When two paintings by Czech naturalist Barbora Kysilkova are stolen from an Oslo art gallery, the thieves are quickly identified through the paintings are nowhere to be found. Hoping to learn what happened, Barbora reaches out to one of the thieves, Karl-Bertil Nordland, asking to paint him. What follows over a series of portraits and many years is an unlikely friendship. Using a structure that cleverly shifts perspectives, Norwegian filmmaker Benjamin Ree unfolds the fraught lives and vulnerabilities of two souls who come to recognize themselves in the other.
Jeff Deutchman negotiated the deal for NEON along with Salma Abdalla from Autolook on behalf of the filmmakers.
NEON most recently made history with four Academy Award wins for Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature.
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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