Because I was a Painter

Because I was a Painter
Because I was a Painter Because I was a Painter Because I was a Painter

Because I was a Painter (2013)

Country: France, Germany

Duration: 104 min

Genre:  Documentary

Director: Christophe Cognet

Screenplay: Christophe Cognet

Producers: Stéphane Jourdain, Jonas Katzenstein

Operators: Sylvain Viricel

Editor: Catherine Zins

Cast: Yehuda Bacon, José Fosty, Walter Spitzer, Samuel Willenberg

 

 

Nomination: Competition, To the memory

Age limitations: 12+

Plot

This is an unprecedented investigation into the artworks created secretly by inmates in Nazi concentration camps and by survivors after liberation. Through interviews with the small number of living artists who survived the Nazi camps, Because I was a Painter examines the stirring, secretly created images of faces, bodies and landscapes to explore the very notion of art and an artist’s impulse to create, even in the darkest of circumstances. The film confronts notions of beauty and representing the horrors of extermination. Can something created under such circumstances, in such places, ever be beautiful?

Rewards and nominations

  • Rome Film Fest, Italy, 2013 - Nominated: CinemaXXI Award

Trailer