L'ombra di Caravaggio

Told in a segmented fashion, the film opens as Caravaggio (Nigel Terry) dies from lead poisoning while in exile, with only his long-time deaf-dumb companion Jerusaleme (Spencer Leigh) (who was given by his family to the artist as a boy) by his side. Caravaggio thinks back to his life as a teenage street ruffian (Dexter Fletcher) who hustles and paints. While taken ill and in the care of priests, young Caravaggio catches the eye of Cardinal Del Monte (Michael Gough). Del Monte nurtures Caravaggio's artistic and intellectual development but also appears to molest him.

Caravaggio's approach to painting was unconventional. He avoided the standard method of making copies of old sculptures and instead took the more direct approach of painting directly onto canvas without drawing first. He also used people from the street as his models. His dramatic painting was enhanced with intense and theatrical lighting.
Caravaggio's fate was sealed when in 1606 he killed a man in a duel. He fled to Naples where he attempted to paint his way out of trouble, he became a Knight, but was then imprisoned in Malta and then finally he moved to Sicily. He was pardoned for murder in 1610, but he died of a fever attempting to return to Rome.

Caravaggio was extraordinarily secretive about the techniques he used to create his ingenious and revolutionary art. He didn't employ assistants and hardly let anyone into his workshop. Although jealous rivals offered rewards to anyone who could discover his trade secrets, he took them to his grave. Or so everyone thought…

Caravaggio was extraordinarily secretive about the techniques he used to create his ingenious and revolutionary art. He didn't employ assistants and hardly let anyone into his workshop. Although jealous rivals offered rewards to anyone who could discover his trade secrets, he took them to his grave. Or so everyone thought…

This is the strange and mysterious tale of Caravaggio's Nativity with St Francis and St Lawrence (also known as The Adoration). Painted in the early 17th century, it was stolen from the Oratory of San Lorenzo in Palermo, Italy in 1969 and hasn't been seen in public since. Now, leading art laboratory and workshop Factum Arte aims to replace the stolen artwork by creating an exact replica via a sophisticated 3D printing technique. This film follows this fascinating journey as experts hope to fill the picture frame that has hung empty in the oratory for the last 47 years and present the Sicilian town with the next best thing to its original masterpiece.

Anna Manni is a policewoman trying to capture a vicious serial rapist and killer. The problem is that she suffers from "Stendhal's syndrome", a psychosomatic disease that gives her dizziness and hallucinations when she is exposed to the sight of paintings and artistic masterpieces. When the maniac lures her into a trap inside Florence's famous Uffizi museum, her troubles are just beginning…