Written and directed by
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (
"The Lives of Others"), the German drama
"Never Look Away" is inspired by the life of painter
Gerhard Richter. The film tells the thirty-year story of fictional artist Kurt Barnhert (
Tom Schilling), chronicling hist life from a childhood witnessing Nazi Germany, to his period as an art student in post-war East Germany.
Sebastian Koch, Paula Beer and
Saskia Rosendahl co-star.
The literal translation of the film's original German title,
Werk ohne Autor", is "Work Without Author", which is a tag that critics in the seventies applied to Richter's art, because of its seeming lack of subjectivity. Even though Donnersmarck had consulted Richter before making this film, the artist was reportedly dissatisfied with the end result, saying that the filmmaker had
"managed to abuse and grossly distort" his biography.
The film has entered the 2019 Oscar race with two nominations for Best Foreign Language Film and Cinematography (
Caleb Deschanel). It was also nominated for a Golden Globe in the Foreign Language category.
"Never Look Away" was released in Germany on October 3, 2018, and received a limited release in U.S. theaters on January 25, 2019.
