Apolonia, Apolonia (2023)

This documentary is both quirky and strangely thorough. It was short listed for Best Documentary, but did not make the final list of nominees—I try to watch quite a few of these because for the three to four months between the ten categories that produce a short list are announced and when the Oscars occur is the only time that I actively and intentionally watch, talk, and think about documentaries. This is an intricate portrait of Apolonia Sokol, the on-the-rise French figurative painter whom Danish documentary filmmaker Lea Glob met in 2009 and filmed for 13 years, is full of such details. Sokol’s story of trying to find her artistic groove is a captivating one, but it is Glob’s own presence in the film that makes an equally memorable point about womanhood and artistry, and helps to double down on the film’s multifaceted thesis. The result is something deeply reflective about femininity, culture, commerce, friendship, sexuality and the various souls who dwell in the impossible intersection of it all. I know nothing about the nuts and bolts of being and becoming an artist. This walks the viewer through some pretty gritty realities of that world, all the while being true to it’s subject. Very well done.