Doc Star of the Month: Barbora Kysilkova, 'The Painter and the Thief'

One of the stranger stranger-than-fiction sagas to premiere at Sundance (where it picked up a Special Jury Award for Creative Storytelling) in January — yes, back when film festivals still happened in real life — Norwegian director Benjamin Ree's The Painter and the Thief follows the unconventional relationship as it unfolds between Barbora Kysilkova and Karl-Bertil Nordland, one a Czech naturalist painter, the other a petty criminal who steals two of the former's paintings from an Oslo gallery. Quickly arrested after the theft, Nordland refuses to give up his accomplices, or to even lift a finger to help recover the artwork. What he does agree to is Kysilkova's unusual request that he sit for a portrait. And then another. And another. Years go by. And even as the pictures remain frustratingly elusive, a man struggling with his own demons slowly transforms from nemesis to muse.

Luckily for Documentary, artist Barbora Kysilkova agreed to sit for May's Doc Star of the Month — and to let us in on the unexpected alchemy that occurred right before her eyes and through Ree's lens. The Painter and the Thief debuts digitally worldwide through Neon on May 22.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.