6 years of work, 125 painters, 65,000 oil paintings on canvas and a budget of $ 5.5 million. Here are some numbers of the first animated movie entirely painted with oil on canvas. Loving Vincent, this is the title of the ambitious film directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman who narrates the life of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. The film will be in cinemas in Italy only on October 16th, 17th and 18th, 2017.
France, 1891, the young Armand Roulin receive from his father the task of delivering a letter to Theo van Gogh, brother of the Dutch painter who just died. Armand goes to Paris, where he can not trace Theo; he then undertakes a search that leads to meeting important people and places in Vincent van Gogh’s life, discovering little by little his tormented life and the extraordinary works he has produced.
Through the expedient of Armand’s search of the painter’s brother, the film makers are able to bring on the screen 94 complete paintings and partially over 30 paintings. In this way Vincent’s art, which comes to life on screen, tells the complex and tormented life of his author. And the result is a more than fascinating. I invite you to take a look at the movie trailer so that you can better understand what I’m referring to. The pictures have an unprecedented power, they are alive and fluid, something never seen before on the screen.
In order to made this film, much of the material was first shot live with actual actors. These shootings then helped the 125 painters to realize the 65,000 paintings that make up the film. Each painting constitutes a frame, and each second consists of 24 frames composed by 12 paintings (they used a common technique in animation, in which the image is updated every two frames, in order to reduce the amount of work for animators). The proces took 6 years and a huge space to store the painted canvases.
A unique film that has enthralled critics and audiences, a titanic-sized venture that comes to the cinema for just three days in what will be a real event where cinema and art blend together like never before. I’m thrilled to go to the cinema and see with my eyes the paintings of Vincent van Gogh become alive on the screen and I invite all of you to do the same. Go to see Loving Vincent, in cinemas only on October 16th, 17th and 18th, 2017.
