In their documentary, the cultural documentarists Corinna Beltz and Enrique Sánchez Lansch provide insights into the ongoing operation of the Uffizi Gallery – one of the most venerable museums in Italy and in the world.
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who | where | What
title “In the Uffizi”
Director Corinna Belz, Enrique Sánchez Lansch
Film start: 25.11.2021
Land Germany
production 2021
Long 96 Min.
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“Good morning, Mr. Director”, Eike Schmidt is greeted. The German towers over the members of his Italian team by around two meters and yet works at eye level. It was a cultural revolution: the first non-Italian to head one of the most venerable museums in Italy and in the world.
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An institution in the eye of the camera
He started in Florence in 2015, settled in and moved a lot. A good time for the two renowned cultural documentarists, Corinna Beltz and Enrique Sánchez Lansch, to stop by with the camera. In the tradition of Frederick Wiseman, the famous documentarist at American and now also French institutions, they are patiently involved in the running of the Uffizi.
A passage through exhibition rooms, collections and workshops
You see people absorbed in reverent contemplation. To others, taking photos of Caravaggio’s Medusa is more important than looking at her. A museum guide stands between schoolchildren sitting on the floor, making them want to see art:
“What are the Uffizi Gallery?” she asks the group. “An exhibition of old things”says a boy. “It’s not just the culture of the Italians, it’s the culture of the western world”, notes an American patron of the arts.
Eike Schmidt and several other wealthy American women took her to the geography room, which was in urgent need of renovation, showing the old maps on the walls and the painted allegories of time on the ceiling, in the hope that they would fall in love and finance the restoration.
An art historian explains that we were the children of the Renaissance in the Medici era. You can see the restorers working on the pictures, which were almost completely destroyed in the mafia arson attack in 1993, is there when Eike Schmidt determines the right shade of green for the redesign of an exhibition room, and asks for another twelve layers of paint until it looks like it is Fabric and no longer like wall paint.
In the photo archive you can discover the photos that led to the trail of Nazi looted art.
Eike Schmidt doesn’t just want to preserve art, instead stimulates a lively exchange – between old and young, between Renaissance art and the modern sculptures by Antony Gormley, for which a place is being sought among the ancient exhibits.
The directors have visited the museum repeatedly over the course of two years, have been allowed to get very close to the great masterpieces by Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo, show the paintings and the surrounding architecture in the alternation of distance and proximity, long shots and detail.
