Just one week to go now…. I can still remember the moment, two years ago, when I thought wouldn’t it be great to share the privilege of filming so often in galleries with a national and indeed international cinema audience. I love and respect what SkyArts do but there will undoubtedly be something special about seeing paintings in HD on a big screen. The Met Opera, NT Live and others have paved the way and now, 101 weeks later, here we are about to launch a global first – LEONARDO LIVE.
Presenters Mariella Frostrup and the art historian and director of the White Cube gallery, Tim Marlow, will be joined by a cast of celebrated guests from the worlds of art, fashion, theatre and film to bring a unique behind-the-scenes look at this incredible exhibition. Guests will include the actress Fiona Shaw, Creative Director of the Royal Opera House and dancer Deborah Bull, the musician Nitin Sawhney and photographer Eamonn McCabe who will be discussing key aspects of Leonardo’s life and work. Pre-recorded films will also offer insight into Leonardo’s biography and the individual paintings. Bringing together the largest ever number of Leonardo’s rare surviving paintings; it will include international loans never before seen in the UK.
This is the first ever time that both versions of the Virgin of the Rocks, from the Louvre and the National Gallery, will be viewed together. The Salvator Mundi will also be featured in the programme, the first rediscovered Leonardo in 100 years which was once sold for £45 and is now worth an estimated £125m.
This pioneering simulcast, created and produced by PhilGrabskyFilms.com in association with LeopardFilms for SkyArts seeks to give the widest possible audience the opportunity to experience this once-in-a-lifetime exhibition.
I remember as a child living near Manchester that the idea of going to a gallery in London was an impossibility. Now we can bring the gallery to you – of course on TV but also in cinemas. I have been making documentaries now for 25 years and, in many ways, it has become much, much tougher than ever before to do anything valuable and crafted. I specialise in arts, classical music, social docs and history – in sum, four of the hardest areas to be in. I still remember the Head of BBC2 in the late 90s telling me that arts & history were dead on TV. ‘Get into reality shows’ I was told. Well, 120 Tim Marlow shows later, two box office successes with IN SEARCH OF MOZART & IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN (and next January IN SEARCH OF HAYDN) and many more including, recently, THE BOY MIR – TEN YEARS IN AFGHANISTAN shows it can be done. But it’s hard, at times seemingly impossible. Most at fault have been the broadcasters who worried there was no audience for content. I knew they were wrong – I see the crowds at concerts and art galleries, etc. You all know it too from the areas you report on. But change is in the air: my cinema screenings are full – LEONARDO LIVE is sold out across 40 screens in the UK. Worldwide it may play in dozens of countries – and it is the first of a series of such films I intend to do. My Afghan film (also, in its way, about human creativity and potential) THE BOY MIR has played in dozens of UK cinemas and will continue to do so. One day here, one week there. It’s not commercial but the films are seen. Digital technology in only a handful of years has changed everything. The VOD revolution has also begun. If you love art and are willing to look out for it you can find it. The downside, of course, is that fewer folk stumble across things. THE BOY MIR tonight plays on More4 – and will get maybe 200,000 viewers – my films in the 90s on BBC2, ITV and C4 got 2 to 3 million.
I hope you get the chance to see LEONARDO LIVE next Tuesday – it has been extremely difficult to do but we are about to bring the wonders of Leonardo on small and big screen in HD to viewers from Bolton to Brisbane, Reading to Rio. I’m exhausted by it all but I hope on the 9th November I’ll feel it was worthwhile and I hope you will too.
Best wishes, Phil Grabsky
PhilGrabskyFilms.com & Seventh Art Productions
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