The Rossland Council for Arts and Culture is screening “Loving Vincent” (2017), the world’s first film to be completed using only oil paintings.
The film brings the paintings of Vincent van Gogh to life to tell the remarkable story of his life and mysterious death. Every one of the 65,000 frames of the film is an oil-painting hand-painted by 125 professional oil-painters who travelled from all across the world to the Loving Vincent studios in Poland and Greece to be a part of the production. As remarkable as Vincent’s brilliant paintings are, along with his passionate and ill-fated life, and mysterious death.
No other artist has attracted more legends than van Gogh. Variously labelled a martyr, a lustful satyr, a madman, a genius and a layabout, the real Vincent is at once revealed in his letters, and obscured by myth and time. Vincent himself said in his last letter: ‘We cannot speak other than by our paintings’.
Loving Vincent was first shot as a live action film with actors, and then hand-painted over frame-by-frame in oils. The final effect is an interaction of the performance of the actors playing Vincent’s famous portraits, and the performance of the painting animators, bringing these characters into the medium of paint.
The art form of film is different from painting. Painting is one particular moment in time, frozen. Film is fluid, seeming to move through space and time. So, prior to and during the live action shoot the Painting Design team spent one-year re-imagining Vincent’s painting into the medium of film. There are 94 Vincent paintings that feature in a form very close to the original, and there are a further 31 paintings that are either featured substantially or partially.
Loving Vincent was nominated in the category of Best Animated Film at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, BAFTA Awards and many more.
Come check out this visually dazzling spectacle on Thursday, May 17th at the Miners Hall. Tickets are $8 for adults and $6 for youth, and available at the door. The film is rated PG-13 and is suitable for most families.
Doors open at 6:30 and the show starts at 7 p.m.
