“My life is to paint.” (Fernando Botero)

When an artist is as popular and ubiquitous as Fernando Botero—whose work has been exhibited in over 50 major museums—we can forget how little we know about the man behind the paintings. This affectionate documentary takes us inside the artist’s world through unprecedented access to his children and the man himself. Botero describes his beginnings in Medellín, Colombia, where he apprenticed as a matador but quit to pursue art, and his introduction to Renaissance masters like Piero della Francesca, whose work he would quote with reverence and humor. He talks about forays into politically charged subjects that got him into trouble and the first experiments with what would become his signature rotund forms, whether of bullfighters, beach bathers, or the Mona Lisa. Director Don Millar cleverly intersperses these colorful reminiscences with archival footage, revealing “an outsider who worked on the fringes, only to swing the cultural tide to his side.” (POV Magazine)