![STOLEN STOLEN](/storage/film-archive/12247/6034_threepics.jpg)
STOLEN
On St Patrick's Day 1990, 500 million dollars worth of art was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston - the largest art heist ever.
Rebecca Dreyfus' Stolen documents the attempt to recover the stolen paintings over a decade after their theft.
Leading the investigation is Harold Smith, a renowned art detective left physically disfigured by his life-long battle with skin cancer. He steals the show with his ever-present bowler hat, eye patch, prosthetic nose and unflappable determination. However, Smith is only the first of the increasingly odd individuals that populate the documentary - from ex-art thieves to fast-talking conmen - at every turn are characters that seem to have been ripped straight from the pages of a pulp detective novel.
Stitching the investigation together with a potted history of the burgled museum and interviews profiling the most valuable of the stolen paintings - Vermeer's The Concert - Stolen offers an intriguing glimpse into the bizarre niche world of fine art crime.
D Rebecca Dreyfus P Susannah Ludwig WS Precision Films LLC
TD video/2005/85mins
Rebecca Dreyfus' films include Roadblock (2000, short) and Bye-Bye Babushka (1997).