The Hamptons International Film Festival, in partnership with Guild Hall of East Hampton, will begin its second annual “Summer Docs” series with a screening of Don Argott’s “The Art of the Steal” at Guild Hall on Monday, July 5, at 8 p.m.
Additional features in the series will be announced at later dates throughout the summer.
Alec Baldwin is set to return as the “Summer Docs” host, introducing the films and participating in question and answer sessions with the directors following the screenings.
“The Art of the Steal” from IFC Films takes a look at one of the art world’s most fascinating controversies: the long and dramatic struggle for control of the Barnes Foundation, a private collection of art valued at more than $25 billion. In 1922, Dr. Albert C. Barnes formed an educational institution around his priceless collection of art, located just 5 miles outside of Philadelphia. More than 50 years after Mr. Barnes’s death, a powerful group of moneyed interests went to court for control of the art, intending to bring it to a new museum in Philadelphia. The film chronicles the fight between those interests and a group of Mr. Barnes’s former students and Mr. Barnes’s will, which contains strict instructions stating the foundation should always be an educational institution, and that the paintings may never be removed.
“The Art of the Steal” was a celebrated selection of the Toronto, New York and AFI Film Festivals.
Tickets for the screening are available at www.guildhall.org or at the Guild Hall box office.
on Jun 29, 2010