Maestà, the Passion of Christ: A film by Andy Guérif

Andy Guérif tries to find new ways to work on painting and films. This time he takes on the entirety of Duccio's huge 'Maestà' altarpiece: its 26 panels split on screen into small windows. 

At a point in each tableau vivant, the actors strike a pose (the scene painted by Duccio). When all the panel stories have been enacted and the altarpiece has been brought back to life, it appears in its entirety on the screen.

The Passion of Christ

The Passion of Christ covers all the episodes connected with the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ, beginning with the Entry into Jerusalem and ending with Pentecost.

In 'Maesta, the Passion of Christ' actors bring these episodes to life including Christ's arrest, trial, whipping, crucifixion and death.

Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300‒1350

In 1771, the Maestà was sawn in half and the predella (altarpiece base) dismantled. Its planks were cut up so individual scenes could be displayed – and later sold – separately. The current exhibition, Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300‒1350, reunites all eight of the surviving panels from the back predella for the first time since their dispersal some 250 years ago.

About the filmmaker

Born in 1977, Andy Guérif is a moviemaker and plastic artist who graduated from the fine arts school of Angers in 2001. The same year he shot 'Portraits d’édudiants', a series of five-minute films. In 2002, he directed his first short, 'Why are you running?…,' in which he revisits a cult scene from 'Vertigo' as a sequence-shot, to question its making. In 2006, Cène announces 'Maestà': the film is focused on a single panel of the polyptych (The Last Supper), and shows the settings being built by actors, who then freeze exactly in the pose of the painting. Andy Guérif also published 'Le code de l’art' (Palette, 2013), in which he has fun associating road signs with art masterpieces. 'Maestà, the Passion of the Christ', which started in 2008 and was finished in 2015, is his first long feature.