‘Loving Vincent’ Brings Van Gogh’s Art to Life in Fully Painted Feature Film

An Oscar-winning studio is bringing the works of Vincent van Gogh to life on the silver screen.

Breakthru Films released a beautifully crafted trailer on Wednesday, the anniversary of van Gogh’s birthday, for Loving Vincent. The biopic about van Gogh’s troubled life and mysterious death will be told completely in animated paintings -some done by van Gogh – through fictional interviews from characters in his canvases. Overall, there will be over 120 paintings by van Gogh featured in the film.

The directors of the film, painter Dorota Kobiela and filmmaker Hugh Welchman, made sure to include van Gogh’s most famous pieces, such as “Starry Night” and his “Self-Portrait.” The plot was pieced together from over 800 letters the artist wrote over his career, all-leading up to his unusual death.

via GIPHY

This is the first movie of its kind with 62,450 frames, or 12 oil paintings per second, to be featured on the big screen. A star-studded cast including Saoirse Ronan, Aidan Turner, Chris O’Dowd and Douglas Booth provide the voices for this one-of-a-kind animated picture.

“He said we can only speak through our paintings,” Kobiela shared with Voice of America. “And these words were very important for me and they were actually the reason we are making this film like that.”

Currently about 100 artists have taken part in the project helping to create Loving Vincent. With more than 56,000 paintings needed to fill the running time of the film, Loving Vincent is currently recruiting painters to travel to Poland to contribute to this uncommon vision.

Watch the trailer for this magnificent piece of art below and check out more about the film and the recruiting process on their Facebook page and website.