Paula Markovitch Draws ‘Paintings in the Dark’

Argentine-born Paula Markovitch, whose feature film debut, coming-of-age drama “The Prize,” won two Berlin Silver Bears in 2011, is prepping “Paintings in the Dark,” inspired by the life of her painter father.

Set up as a Mexico-Argentina-Poland co-production, “Paintings” is in final financing stage, skedded to roll April-May 2015 in Cordoba, Argentina, the place where Markovitch’s father lived and died.

 The film will embody fictional elements, Markovitch said. A first part will tell the last months in the life of a painter who never exhibited a picture. Halfway through the movie, after the painter’s death, a thief breaks into his house and encounters his work, an event that will change the thief’s life.

 Mexican producer Rodrigo Herranz (“Y tu mama tambien,” “Pastorela”) and Poland’s cinematographer-producer Wojciech Staron, whose d.p. work in “The Prize” made him worthy of a Silver Bear for outstanding contribution, are attached to the project.

 Argentina’s producer Juan Pablo Miller and Mexico’s prodco Cuevas de Altamira Producciones are also on board.

 “Film is a reflection on what remains of us when we die, if art is really transcendent and if our actions influence future generations or may be lost,” Markovitch said.

“Even in the worst situations, human beings need to express themselves artistically,” she said. “Art is a way to recover from pain. In that sense, the film can be understood worldwide.”

 Markovitch, who has lived in Mexico for 22 years, started to gain attention as the scribe of Juan Antonio de la Riva’s “Elisa Before the End of the World,” winner of the audience prize at 1997′s Guadalajara Festival, and especially after co-writing Fernando Eimbcke’s critically-admired and multi-awarded pics “Duck Season” and “Lake Tahoe.”

 Handled by Urban Distribution Intl, “The Prize,” a semi-autobiographical story on a girl growing up under the military junta in Argentina, sold widely around the world, including a North American pick up from Global Film Initiative.

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