El Greco

Domenikos Theotokopoulos was born on Crete. He learned in Venice, failed to establish himself in Rome, and settled in Spain, in Toledo, where he became known as El Greco. King Philip II disliked his work and that closed the court to him, but he went on painting his own way in Toledo. Elongated bodies, yellow light, space that will not lie flat. Painting that was found strange in his own time was taken centuries later as a forerunner of modern art. The film puts the artist face to face with the Inquisition. Yannis Smaragdis directs; a hundred and nineteen minutes, with Nick Ashdon as El Greco, a co-production between Greece, Spain and Hungary, with music by Vangelis. It builds the painter's life as a story of resistance rather than staying inside the historical record.