Modigliani, a Paixão pela Vida

Set in Paris in 1919, this biopic centers on the life of late Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, focusing on his last days and his rivalry with Pablo Picasso. The Jewish Modigliani has fallen in love with young, beautiful Catholic Jeanne. They have an illegitimate child, whom Jeanne's bigoted parents send to a faraway convent to be raised by nuns. The distraught Modigliani needs money to rescue and raise his child. The answer arrives in the shape of Paris' annual art competition. Prize money and a guaranteed career await the winner. Neither Modigliani nor his dearest friend and rival Picasso has ever entered the competition, believing that it is beneath true artists like themselves. But push comes to shove with his child's welfare on the line, and Modigliani signs up for the competition in a drunken and drug-induced tirade. Picasso follows suit, and all of Paris is aflutter with excitement about who will win. With the balance of his relationship with Jeanne on the line, Modigliani tackles this work with the hopes of creating a masterpiece, and knows that all the artists of Paris are doing the same.-Sujit R. Varma