In 1972, a thief and two accomplices stole two Gauguins, one Picasso and a Rembrandt from the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts. At the time, it was the largest art heist (and the first armed art heist) in American history; the thief, Florian Monday, would have entered the criminal pantheon had he not been swiftly captured after indiscreetly bragging about his crime. As she reveals in her conversation below with director Yorgos Lanthimos, Kelly Reichardt has kept an “art theft” file over the years, with an article on the 50th anniversary of the Worcester crime providing inspiration for her latest […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Sep 17, 2025
On the evening of August 8, 1939, Hitler’s Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels led a fleet of gondolas down the Canal Grande. He’d been invited to attend the opening of the seventh Venice Film Festival, which began in a lugubrious atmosphere. The specter of a new world conflict was haunting Europe; critics dispatching from the Lido wrote of an “empty” Venice, “long-faced people,” “little dancing” and “lots of play to chase away negative thoughts.” Back then, the festival functioned as a sort of political summit; the Biennale invited delegations from different countries, which would submit the films themselves. Sixteen nations took […]
by Leonardo Goi on Sep 15, 2025