Sony Pictures picks up child artist documentary
January 24th, 2007 by Zsofia
Sony Pictures Classics has picked up worldwide rights to “My Kid Could Paint That”, a Sundance documentary featuring the story of controversial child genius, Marla Olmstead. Following comparisons to Jackson Pollock and Wassily Kandinsky, Marla sold over $300,000 worth of abstract paintings. All this when she was only 4-years old.
Amir Bar-Lev, a Manhattan-based documentary film maker, covers her rise to fame and the controversy that surrounds child prodigies and the making of US celebrities. The film has been described as a mix of doc ethics, art politics and family drama, in which the authencity of the artist is drawn into question by skeptical journalists — including the filmmaker himself.
Check out Marla Olmstead’s paintings at her gallery
“This is a situation where I didn’t have any proof either way, and I really did have to base my feelings on assessing the paintings. I did go into this process sort of having that ‘my kid could paint that’ attitude a little bit, wondering how do you judge abstract art? What is the difference between that and this?” - Bar-Lev said in an interview.
Representatives for Sony Pictures and director Amir Bar-Lev would not comment on how much the deal fetched, but news reports circulating the web say the deal was brokered for $1.85 million. A&E already secured limited North American television rights to the film last week, before the film’s premiere.
Read more about the family’s reaction and the challenges of making this film at http://www.thereeler.com/features/sundance_kid.php
