Botero

The world-renowned Colombian artist Fernando Botero is the creator of some of the most popular imagery in the world of art. He holds center stage in this documentary by Academy Award nominated filmmaker Peter Schamoni, who is widely esteemed for his documentaries on artists such as Hundertwasser, Max Ernst and Niki de Saint Phalle. Accompanying Botero on his travels to various international capitals including Paris, New York and Tokyo, as well as to his native Colombia, Schamoni remains discreetly in the background, letting the artist describe his work and his life. The director blends present-day scenes of the artist in conversation along with film excerpts from the painter's earlier years and documentary footage illustrating his rise in the art world.

Commenting on his paintings, drawings and sculptures, Botero reveals the many sources of his inspiration, from Gauguin to the Baroque statues of saints in the churches of his native Medellìn, and from bullfights, with their dazzlingly dressed toreros to the circus, with its many colorful costumes. Perhaps his most fascinating stories concern the development of his unique style, marked above all by radically obese human forms and a monumentality underscored by jarring proportions and a reduction of details. As to Botero's social commitment, the artist actively endeavors to make Medellìn known as a city of art, and works intensively towards fostering peace. This emerges, for example, in his moving, monumental cycle of paintings inspired by the infamous Abu Ghraib photos that shocked the world.

This documentary provides an intimate look at Latin America's most celebrated artist, whose art distinctly reflects his origins while touching a chord in the hearts of people throughout the world.