On Saturday, 22 November, the director Barbet Schroeder is part of a conversation with Paolo Moretti following the preview of Ricardo et la peinture (2023), his documentary on Argentine painter Ricardo Cavallo.
RICARDO ET LA PEINTURE
2023, 106′
Director: Barbet Schroeder
Country: France, Switzerland
Distributor: Satine Film
Language: OV French with Italian subtitles
UNRELEASED
Ricardo Cavallo is an Argentine painter who chose to live in a small village in Brittany, where he teaches painting to children, works in his studio, and contemplates the light over the sea. Far from the circuits of the official art world, he has built a life of simplicity and complete devotion to the act of painting. Barbet Schroeder follows him in his daily routine amid canvases, silences, and conversations, documenting his work with the intimacy of a friendly gaze.
Presented out of competition at the 2023 Locarno Film Festival, Ricardo et la peinture marks a return to light for Schroeder after the ruthless portraits of evil that defined his work in the previous decades. From Buenos Aires to his cave-studio in Finistère, the film unfolds as a journey through art history, guided by the erudite and visionary perspective of Ricardo Cavallo. Schroeder films with lightweight equipment, no artificial lighting, and a focus on spontaneous gestures, allowing events to unfold naturally to craft a luminous meditation on artistic creation, humility in craft, and the generosity of sharing. A delicate yet solemn work, in which the time of art and the time of life gracefully overlap. “The film truly arose from the union of our two spirits. Often, Ricardo intuited what I expected of him and responded beyond all my expectations. His thinking reveals that everything is intimately connected, that the history of art resembles an unbroken flow.” (Barbet Schroeder)
BIOGRAPHY
A French director, screenwriter and producer of Swiss origin, Barbet Schroeder was born in Tehran in 1941. After studying philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris, he worked with the magazines Cahiers du cinéma and L’Air de Paris. In 1964, he founded the production company Les Films du Losange, collaborating with Nouvelle Vague auteurs such as Éric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette.
He made his directorial debut with More (1969), later establishing himself as the author of films and documentaries with a strong social and political imprint, including Général Idi Amin Dada (1974) and Koko, le gorille qui parle (1978). In the 1980s, he moved to Hollywood, where he directed successful films such as Barfly (1987), Reversal of Fortune (1990), which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Director, and Dangerous Liaisons (1992). His later works include The Virgin of the Assassins (2000) and Formula for Murder (2002), followed by a series of documentaries in which he explored controversial figures and themes in contemporary history, including The Terror Lawyer (2007) and Il venerabile W. (2017). His latest feature film, Ricardo et la peinture, dedicated to his friend, the painter Ricardo Cavallo, was presented at the Locarno Film Festival in 2023.