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First oil painted film presented at Kitchen Stove Film Festival

Penticton Art Gallery Kitchen Stove Film Festival presents Loving Vincent
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The world’s first fully oil-painted animated feature film, Loving Vincent brings the art of Vincent van Gogh to life to recount the life story of this most mysterious, mythical, and tragic of great painters.

The film, shot first as a live-action film, and them painted over frame by frame with oils, is the next to be shown as part of the Penticton Art Gallery Kitchen Stove Film Festival.

Loving Vincent has a sterling cast — including Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn), Chris O’Dowd (Bridesmaids), Jerome Flynn (Game of Thrones), and stage actor Robert Gulaczyk as van Gogh.

The film is based around a directionless young man who is given a letter by his postman father to hand-deliver to Paris. He is to deliver it to the brother of his father’s friend Vincent van Gogh, who, they have just heard, killed himself. None too pleased with the mission, the young man is embarrassed by his father’s association with van Gogh, a foreign painter who cut off his ear and was committed to the local asylum.

The young man’s journey leads him to a paint supplier who helped van Gogh on his transformation from down-and-out to artistic sensation. Captured by the story, the young man follows the final footsteps of the painter before his death to try and find the moment van Gogh chose to the moment of impending success to take his life.

Loving Vincent was first shot as a live action film with actors, and then hand-painted over frame-by-frame in oils. Every one of the 65,000 frames of the film is an oil-painting hand-painted by 125 professional oil-painters who travelled from all across the world to the Loving Vincent studios in Poland and Greece to be a part of the production. The final effect is an interaction of the performance of the actors playing Vincent’s famous portraits, and the performance of the painting animators, bringing these characters into the medium of paint.

Loving Vincent will be screened on Nov. 16 at 4 and 7 p.m. Single tickets available at the Penticton Art Gallery and The Book Shop – 242 Main St. (250-492-6661). All movies are screened at the Landmark 7 Cinema, 250 Winnipeg St. Pre-purchased single tickets are $13 each.

The final instalment of the Kitchen Stove Film Festival takes place on Jan. 18 with the screening of The Other Side of Hope.

The Kitchen Stove Film Series is an income development initiative of the Penticton Art Gallery. Broadening the definition of the visual arts to include the medium of film, the series aims to inspire, challenge, educate and entertain while showcasing excellence in the cinematic arts. The series is affiliated with the Toronto International Film Festival Circuit Group and supported locally by the Penticton Western News.