Two unlikely counterparts come together in Norwegian filmmaker Benjamin Ree’s doco THE PAINTER AND THE THIEF, a film that charts an extraordinary connection born from a crime. When two of artist Barbora Kysilkova’s paintings are stolen from a gallery in Oslo, the police quickly pin down the thief - but they don’t find the paintings, and nor does anyone expect what happens next. Approaching one of the criminals at his hearing, Barbora decides to ask if she can paint his portrait. What follows over many years is the unfolding of a unique bond, and for the audience, an understanding of the vulnerabilities of both painter and subject and the inextricable link between them. Ree captures the lives of two lonely souls more similar than they first realise in his engrossing documentary.

Some Norwegian language, English subtitles.