Trailer
Jury Prize, FIFA 2024
Ukrainian-Israeli filmmaker Margarita Linton seeks to bridge the gap with her estranged father, a renowned Russian painter. Visiting his exhibition in Tel-Aviv, hoping for reconnection after a decade, she faces dashed hopes. Undeterred, she channels her frustration into an inspiring, creative endeavor, determined to share her story despite his non-involvement. This poignant narrative delves into a daughter’s exploration of an artist’s legacy as an absentee parent, embracing acceptance through her remarkable creativity. An excellent documentary thats blurs the line of fiction, deceives the viewer, and delivers a fascinating message: how to embody absence? How to film emptiness?
Word of direction
Although living in close proximity, for most of my life my father was for me mostly a painted character. As a girl, I was a regular visitor to his exhibitions. The curators and gallery owners already knew me and when they asked how Dad was, I would smile awkwardly, not knowing what to answer.
After becoming a mother myself, I visited his biggest retrospective to date. I looked at his painted face staring at me from all corners of the room and saw them changing and maturing over a 25-year course. And it hit me how much I missed him.
This film was supposed to be an attempt to get to know my father anew, and to get closer him through art. But after he refused, a more accurate work was born. Just as he was absent from my life, so was my father absent from the film. And this very absence freed me to recreate our story, using the tools that cinema is generously giving me.
The Artist’s Daughter, Oil on Canvas is the name of a painting that was never exhibited. It is a mutual portrait I paint on the screen and dedicate to my father, to myself and to what could have happened between us.
- Margarita Linton, Yaniv Linton
Ukrainian-Israeli filmmaker Margarita Linton seeks to bridge the gap with her estranged father, a renowned Russian painter. Visiting his exhibition in Tel-Aviv, hoping for reconnection after a decade, she faces dashed hopes. Undeterred, she channels her frustration into an inspiring, creative endeavor, determined to share her story despite his non-involvement. This poignant narrative delves into a daughter’s exploration of an artist’s legacy as an absentee parent, embracing acceptance through her remarkable creativity. An excellent documentary thats blurs the line of fiction, deceives the viewer, and delivers a fascinating message: how to embody absence? How to film emptiness?
Word of direction
Although living in close proximity, for most of my life my father was for me mostly a painted character. As a girl, I was a regular visitor to his exhibitions. The curators and gallery owners already knew me and when they asked how Dad was, I would smile awkwardly, not knowing what to answer.
After becoming a mother myself, I visited his biggest retrospective to date. I looked at his painted face staring at me from all corners of the room and saw them changing and maturing over a 25-year course. And it hit me how much I missed him.
This film was supposed to be an attempt to get to know my father anew, and to get closer him through art. But after he refused, a more accurate work was born. Just as he was absent from my life, so was my father absent from the film. And this very absence freed me to recreate our story, using the tools that cinema is generously giving me.
The Artist’s Daughter, Oil on Canvas is the name of a painting that was never exhibited. It is a mutual portrait I paint on the screen and dedicate to my father, to myself and to what could have happened between us.
- Margarita Linton, Yaniv Linton
Other festivals:
Asolo Art Film Festival, Italy (2023)
Hot Docs Toronto, Canada (2022)
Docaviv, Israel (2022)
Asolo Art Film Festival, Italy (2023)
Hot Docs Toronto, Canada (2022)
Docaviv, Israel (2022)
| Director | Margarita Linton |
| Director of Photography | Yaniv Linton |
| Production | Haim Mecklberg, Estee Yacob-Mecklberg, Tomer Mecklberg |
| Editing | Neta Dvorkis, Margarita Linton |
In Partnership with
Session
• Musée McCord Stewart
Sunday, march 17, 2024, 04:30 p.m. — 06:00 p.m.
Production
Margarita Linton
Margarita Linton emigrated to Israel from the Ukraine when she was 5 years old.
After completing her military service as a hiking guide, she studied still photography, and wrote and published poetry.
She graduated from the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in 2012.
During her studies she won the Galit Rosen Directing Award and the Class of 2012 Promising Director Award. Since her graduation, she works as a film editor for documentaries, TV series, and short films, as well as an editing mentor at Sam Spiegel film school, and Hadassah academic college.
Margarita participated in the 5th edition of The JSFS script lab with her debut script “Life is Anywhere Else”. While developing the script, Margarita shot her first full length documentary feature “The Artist’s Daughter, Oil on Canvas, 2021”.
Biographical notes provided by the film production team
After completing her military service as a hiking guide, she studied still photography, and wrote and published poetry.
She graduated from the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in 2012.
During her studies she won the Galit Rosen Directing Award and the Class of 2012 Promising Director Award. Since her graduation, she works as a film editor for documentaries, TV series, and short films, as well as an editing mentor at Sam Spiegel film school, and Hadassah academic college.
Margarita participated in the 5th edition of The JSFS script lab with her debut script “Life is Anywhere Else”. While developing the script, Margarita shot her first full length documentary feature “The Artist’s Daughter, Oil on Canvas, 2021”.
Biographical notes provided by the film production team
Ketupa (2012)
The Tale of Yona and the Sad Tree (2009)
The Tale of Yona and the Sad Tree (2009)
In the same session
Musée McCord Stewart
Sunday, march 17, 2024, 04:30 p.m.
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