Synopsis
The Painter and the Thief (Kunstneren og tyven, 2020) is a Norwegian documentary you can watch online on iFILM. Director Benjamin Ree filmed an unlikely friendship that grew out of a robbery — between Czech painter Barbora Kysilkova and the man who stole her canvases from an Oslo gallery.
Two of Barbora's paintings vanish from a showroom in Frogner. Police trace the culprit within days, yet the artworks stay missing. At the trial she does something no one expects: she asks the thief, Karl-Bertil Nordland, to sit for a portrait. From there the camera trails the two of them across three years, watching a damaged former addict slowly become her model and her subject.
The film's gut-punch arrives when Karl-Bertil first lays eyes on his own portrait — people rewind that single scene on its own. It's a study of guilt, forgiveness and two broken people patching each other up. Perfect for anyone who likes documentaries that astonish more than fiction does. Stream The Painter and the Thief (2020) online on iFILM.
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