Allison Otto
WONDER HOUSE @ SXSW 2022 Talk:
The Thief Collector: Chat with director Allison Otto, producer Caryn Capotosto and Texas Tribune Editor-in-Chief Sewell Chan
Saturday, March 12, 7 p.m.
Surround Stage
FILMMAKER DISCUSSION [WATCH ON YOUTUBE]:
ABOUT ALLISON:
Allison Otto is an Emmy winning documentary filmmaker, cinematographer, and visual journalist. Her documentary short, The Love Bugs (2019), was awarded Best Short Documentary in the 42nd Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards after screening on POV Shorts Season 3 (2020). The film was also shortlisted for a 2019 International Documentary Association Award and is touring globally with the American Film Showcase. Allison is a 2019 recipient of the SFFILM Catapult Film Fellowship, a 2018 and 2011 Telluride Mountainfilm Commitment grant recipient, and a 2018 Roy W. Dean grant winner. Her journalism clients have included National Geographic, BBC America, NBC, the Sierra Club, Travel Channel, Atlas Obscura, and Lonely Planet. Her first feature-length documentary, The Thief Collector, is premiering in the Feature Documentary competition at SXSW 2022.
ABOUT THE THIEF COLLECTOR:
In 1985, Willem de Kooning’s “Woman-Ochre,” one of the most valuable paintings of the 20th century, vanished into the Arizona desert after being cut from its frame at the University of Arizona Museum of Art. 32 years later, the $160 million painting was found hanging in the home of Jerry and Rita Alter in rural New Mexico. The Thief Collector takes a deep look at how, and why, this mild-mannered couple pulled off one of the greatest art heists of a generation, exploring the complicated dynamics of family, the contours of criminality, and just how far people will go to weave their own grandiose narratives.