GDANSK.- Loving Vincent is a film that is true to this deathbed testament, and explores the intense mind of this towering genius through his own paintings.

Brought to you by Oscar winning studio BreakThru Films, and Painter-Director Dorota Kobiela.

Loving Vincent is a vivid and intense celebration of the work of Vincent Van Gogh, vibrantly bringing to life some of his best known works of art.

Loving Vincent brings some of the worlds best known paintings, famed for their vibrant shimmering life, into actual movement as an animation film shot at 8k resolution, using oil paint on canvas animation technique (like Polish master Witold Giersz and similar to oil paint on glass animation made famous by the Oscar winning Russian animator Petrov).

Loving Vincent will sensuously through visual narrative inspired by iconic art draw the audience experientially into the mindset of Vincent, who teetered between ecstasy and despondancy in his quest to communicate the essence of man and nature to the world.

It will be accompanied by Vincent on the Walls of the World, a series of large scale painting on wall animations made in different cities around the world in workshops by children, each based on a Vincent painting, making the project.

ANIMATING BY PAINTING
Vincent van Gogh’s paintings are the fundamental aesthetics of the film. The story is told through vivid colors, vibrant oil paint and the dynamics of a paintbrush. But because of the dual nature of the film – the real world in which the character lives his last day, – and the world of his paintings, the film operates two slightly different means of expression. The first one is as a form of personal (author’s) way of expression and the second one is a reproduction of Van Gogh’s style.

The producers will model the characters and sets in 3D CG animation, composed according to the storyboard and animatic, creating a dramatic blueprint for the traditional animation, and enabling them to bring more dynamism and depth to the film.

This combination of techniques will allow full control over all the images and the film’s artistic direction. But first of all, it will help to predict and plan all the production stages before starting the most important painting process. It will also enable the film’s painters to work simultaneously and express their artistic flame freely.

VINCENT ON THE WALLS OF THE WORLD
To accompany the film Vincent, an exploration into the character of Vincent Van Gogh through his paintings, producers are proposing to run a series of workshops with children animating onto walls in Cities connected to Vincent.

The Van Gogh Wall Animation, will bring together a group of children to create an animation based on the art of Van Gogh on a city wall. They will be bringing the wall and the vivid artwork to life, under the direction of Artistic Director Dorota Kobiela.

The workshop starts with a painting animation masterclass, and the participants sketching out the designs and key frames for their section of the animation.

The group then moves to the wall, which can either be inside or outside, and together animate the pre-prepared wall painting frame by frame. The workshop is aimed at developing co-operation and teamwork, as well as allowing for individual artistic endeavour.

At the end of the day there is a new painting on the wall, created by the participants, and also an animated film (length depends on level of group).

The following day the animation film is finished by Dorota Kobiela, and additionally the BreakThru team can edit a making-of documenting the workshop.

The end result is an animated film made by the workshop participants, an educational making-of film, and a large scale collaborative work of art.