The Peasants’ film is 100% hand-painted with Cobra oil paint.

Premiere of the film ‘The Peasants’ at the Toronto International Film Festival

Monday, August 7, 2023

The world premiere for ‘The Peasants’, the new movie from the makers of ‘Loving Vincent’ will take place at the Toronto International Film Festival. The latest movie from DK Welchman and Hugh Welchman was selected to screen in the Special Presentations Section.

‘The Peasants’ is based on a Nobel prize-winning novel by Wladyslaw Reymont and is produced using Cobra oil paints in the same painting animation technique used in the studio’s 2017 production ‘Loving Vincent’. This film about the life of Vincent van Gogh won the hearts of fans around the world and received several awards and nominations, was seen in cinemas by 6 million people around the world and grossed more than $42 million at the global box office.

Toronto International Film Festival

Toronto International Film Festival takes place from September 7 to 17 and is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Special Presentations is one of the most prestigious sections of TIFF. 2022 selection included such films as “All Quiet on The Western Front”, “The Fabelmans”, “Women Talking”, “Bros” and “The Menu”.

We are thrilled ‘The Peasants’ world premiere will happen at Toronto International Film Festival. TIFF has a mission to ‘transform the way people see the world through film’ and that philosophy is close to our hearts. ‘The Peasants’ has been another journey of discovery for us, that has allowed us to go deeper into the emotional possibilities and the aesthetic beauty that our oil-painting animation technique can bring to filmic storytelling. It has also allowed us to bring Reymont’s powerful story of peasant life, which despite its Nobel Prize is now largely unknown outside of Poland, to the world. I couldn’t imagine a better place than Toronto to share it with the viewers for the very first time. - says Hugh Welchman, ‘The Peasants’ co-director and producer from BreakThru Films studio. To access a global overview of 'The Peasants' premieres, please click here.

The collaboration with Cobra oil paints

BreakThru Films has partnered up with leading fine-art paint producer Royal Talens as their preferred supplier for their latest project. BreakThru Films has selected Royal Talens’ line of Cobra oil paints to be utilized in the making of the studio’s new film ‘The Peasants’. Cobra oil paints are innovative, water-mixable oil colours that can be used and cleaned without any harmful solvents, yet still have the many benefits of traditional oil paints. This allows the approximately 70 painters hired to paint the frames for ‘The Peasants’ to paint the frames and clean their materials without having to use turpentine or white spirit, which is better for

both the environment and the health of the artists. The artist quality paints provide exceptionally high pigmentation, which allows for pure and highly saturated colours on the many canvasses used in the film.

Each frame of the film is a piece of art containing a powerful and emotional story that will touch your heart in cinemas in Autumn 2023!

To find out more about the team, story and studio, visit their website: www.thepeasantsmovie.com.

The story

‘The Peasants’ tells the story of Jagna, a young woman determined to forge her own path within the confines of a late 19th century Polish village - a hotbed of gossip and on-going feuds, held together, rich and poor, by pride in their land, adherence to colourful traditions and a deep-rooted patriarchy. When Jagna finds herself caught between the conflicting desires of the village’s richest farmer, his eldest son and other leading men of the community, her resistance puts her on a tragic collision course with the community around her.

The film's screenplay is based on Władysław Reymont's novel, for which he received the Nobel Prize, surpassing Thomas Mann, Thomas Hardy, and Maxim Gorky. As a novel, ‘The Peasants’ is considered the most credible chronicle of the peasant community ever written. Watch the teaser HERE!

The animation

‘The Peasants’ animation is an essence of half a century of European painting from the turn of the XIX and XX centuries, with an emphasis on the Young Poland Movement. At first the movie was shot as a feature film, then a group of over 100 painters started the painting animation, which took over 2 years. The artists were painting the key frames using Cobra oil-paints (Royal Talens) on canvas and the group of animators were creating frames in-between to smooth up the transition from one frame to the other.

New Europe Film Sales has sold the movie to over 40 countries, including German-speaking Europe (Plaion), France (The Jokers), Benelux (Paradiso), South Korea (First Run), China (JL Film), Scandinavia (Another World Entertainment) and Spain (Karma). The company is in negotiations with buyers in the U.K. and North America, Australia and Japan, where rights remain open. The film's distributor in Poland is Next Film.

About Royal Talens

Royal Talens produces artist’s paint and supplies a wide range of creative materials. Established in 1899, the company has become a leading player in the global fine art market, featuring renowned brands such as Bruynzeel, Sakura, Talens, Ecoline, Amsterdam, Rembrandt, Cobra and Van Gogh.

Royal Talens aspires to make the world more beautiful. We do so by producing our high-quality artist’s paint in the most intense colours for artists all over the world to use to create their inspirational art. But we also conduct business responsibly, now and in the future. Creative expression is a great asset; a passion to share and to develop further.