WILLIAM KENTRIDGE, ARTIST: THE END OF THE BEGINNING

William Kentridge is South Africa’s best known contemporary artist – and one of the world’s most acclaimed creative spirits. He presents his images through easel painting and drawing but also in some uniquely innovative ways. His animated films – which he says are at “the low end of current technology” – are composed of thousands of charcoal drawings, which are filmed on 35mm film and then edited into a moving and imaginative sequence.

Beata Lipman’s film explores Kentridge’s particular way of working as he starts drawing and filming for a fresh animation, Felix in Exile. Kentridge is an eloquent communicator in words as well as images, and he comes across warmly and accessibly in this intimate portrait. Lipman succeeds in conveying Kentridge’s philosophy and his sense of the situation in South Africa at the time (2001), to which the artist bears profound witness.

Documentary
28’
Betacam
Colour

Original languages
English

Title
William Kentridge, Artist: the end of the beginning (2001)

Director
Beata Lipman

Production
Beata Lipman