The Painter and the Thief

dir. Benjamin Ree 2020 Norway 102 min.
2020 – FF Sundance: Nagroda World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Storytelling
A complicated relationship between a painter and the thief of her works.


Barbora Kysilkova, a Czech painter, lived in Oslo received a distress phone call from a gallerist. Two men had finagled their way into the Galleri Nobel in broad daylight, and made off with two works. Both were hers. Hoping to learn what happened, Barbora approaches one of the thieves, Karl-Bertil Nordland, at his criminal hearing. She asks if she can paint his portrait and, in a contrite tone, he agrees.