Because I Was a Painter ( Parce que j'étais peintre )

Because I Was a Painter (DVD) (*)

$30.99

Original Title: Parce que j'étais peintre
Screened, competed or awarded at:
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Subtitles )
French ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
French ( Subtitles )

Product Origin/Format:
France ( PAL/Region 0 )

Running Time:
100 min + 78 min extras

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen (1.78:1)

Special Features:
Cast/Crew Interview(s)
Interactive Menu
Scene Access
Trailer(s)
Booklet

Movie filmed in 2013 and produced in:
France ( France, Benelux )
Germany ( Germany, Central Europe )

Directed By:
Christophe Cognet

Written By:
Christophe Cognet

Actors:
Yehuda Bacon ..... Himself
José Fosty ..... Himself
Walter Spitzer ..... Himself
Samuel Willenberg ..... Himself
Krystyna Zaorska ..... Herself

Synopsis:

An unprecedented investigation into the artworks created secretly in Nazi concentration and death camps. It converses with the rare handful of living artists who survived the camps and with their curators: about the emotions the works stir, their marginalization, their signature or anonymity, their style, as well as the representation of horror and extermination. But more importantly, perhaps, the film takes a long look at the drawings, wash drawings and paintings held in collections in France, Germany, Israel, Poland, the Czech Republic, Belgium and Switzerland. Director's statement 'I hardly dare to say it, but for a painter, the beauty of it was incredible. It was absolutely vital to reproduce it, to represent and to show it, in order to preserve it for the future', wrote Zoran Music, a survivor of Dachau. The film moves between these fragments of clandestine images and the vestiges of the camps, offering a sensitive search of faces, bodies and landscapes to explore the very notion of artwork and confront the idea of beauty head-on. The stakes are disconcerting, but perhaps it may help us to truly imagine what the camps must have been like, and to feel the respect due an artist, no matter how small or fragile his gesture of drawing.

This film is an unusual investigation into the art works secretly produced in Nazi concentration camps. The few artists sent to the camps who are still alive, along with the conservators of the artists' works, appear in the film, which speaks of the emotion provoked by these works, the artists' marginalization, their renown, or their anonymity, their style, and also the representation of horror and extermination.
Above all, perhaps, the film lingers on and contemplates the drawings, wash drawings, and paintings conserved in French, German, Israeli, Polish, Czech, Belgian, and Swiss archives. This journey among the fragments of secret images and the ruins of the former camps hence offers a sensitive quest between faces, bodies, and landscapes so as to ponder the notion of the work of art and boldly question the idea of beauty. A disturbing enterprise, perhaps, but it allows us to then better imagine what the camps were really like, to understand the possibilities of art, and sense what an artist's honor is all about - as minute and fragile as the gesture of drawing may be..

A meditation on suffering and beauty and how art can bridge the gap between the two.

This product was added to our catalog on Monday 03 November, 2014.