Caravaggio

British director Derek Jarman spent seven years working on this film about the life of the great painter Caravaggio (1571-1610), who had a short, tempestuous life, full of intense passions and devastating love stories. The film is a ground-breaking biography, building its narrative upon a de profundis confession of the dying Caravaggio – who was stabbed to death during a fight – which draws the portrait of an artist as a literally accursed figure, who will pay the price for his nonconformist behavior and his sexual identity. At the same time, the Renaissance Era is not depicted in its mythically bright colors, but is revealed as a dark period of social decline and moral decay.

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Script: Derek Jarman

Cinematography: Gabriel Beristain

Editing: Georg Akers

Music: Simon Fisher-Turner

Actors: Noam Almaz (Caravaggio as a child), DexterFletcher (teenage Caravaggio), Nigel Terry (adult Caravaggio), Dawn Archibald (Pipo), Sean Bean (Ranuccio), Jack Birkett(the Pope), Tilda Swinton (Lena)

Production: British Film Institute, UK T. +44 20 7255 1444 enquiries@britishfilmcommission.org.uk www.bfi.org.uk

Producers: Sarah Radclyffe

Art Direction: Mike Buchanan

Costumes: Sandy Powell

Production Design: Christopher Hobbs

Format: 16mm Color

Production Country: UK

Production Year: 1986

Duration: 93

Silver Bear & C.I.D.A.L.C. Award – Berlin IFF 1986 Special Prize of the Jury – Istanbul IFF 1987

Derek Jarman