Loving Vincent

Loving Vincent is a 2017 experimental adult animated historical drama film directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, and written by Kobiela, Welchman, and Jacek Dehnel. It is based on the life of the painter Vincent van Gogh, in particular the circumstances of his death. It is the first fully painted animated feature film. The film is a co-production between Poland and the United Kingdom, funded by the Polish Film Institute, and partially through a Kickstarter campaign. The film stars Robert Gulaczyk, Douglas Booth, Jerome Flynn, Saoirse Ronan, Helen McCrory, Chris O'Dowd, John Sessions, Eleanor Tomlinson, and Aidan Turner. First conceived as a seven-minute short film in 2008, Loving Vincent was realized by Kobiela, a painter herself, after studying the techniques and the artist's story through his letters. With an additional use of rotoscoping animation, each of the film's 65,000 frames is an oil painting on canvas, created using the same techniques as Van Gogh by a team of 125 artists drawn from around the globe. The film premiered at the 2017 Annecy International Animated Film Festival. The film received critical acclaim and won Best Animated Feature Film Award at the 30th European Film Awards in Berlin and was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 90th Academy Awards. The film marked Helen McCrory's final film role before her death in April 2021.