Hilma

Lasse Hallström’s Hilma brings to the big screen the life story of a woman who defied conventions and revolutionized the art world when her work was exhibited in its entirety in 2019 at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC. Hilma died in 1944, unknown and unrecognized as the woman who invented abstract painting, displacing Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian as the initiators of abstract painting and Modernism. From her adoration of the anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner and her invincible belief in spirits, to her unconventional romantic life and close circle of fellow female artists who converged around Hilma and her atelier, the film provides a nuanced portrait of a woman who chose to remain true to her vision as an artist, despite working in a hostile, misogynistic world where women were not expected to express themselves and still were not allowed to vote.

The all-star cast includes Tora Hallström and Oscar nominee Lena Olin, who plays Hilma at different ages, Tom Wlaschiha, Catherine Chalk and Lily Cole.

"The director wins the audience… with his sincere connection to the artist Hilma af Klint...the emotions onscreen have true power." ~ By Amy Nicholson, New York Times

[Hallström's] new film is sensitive to and respectful of its subject, ...and does honor to Af Klint and her mad visions...Depicting the interior inspiration of an artist is a challenge for a film director, which is why most biopics of creative folk tend to focus instead on gossip and surface—tempestuous affairs, bad behavior and the like. In Hilma, however, Sweden’s most successful living filmmaker has attempted to unlock the imagination of Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862-1944)." ~ Kyle Smith, Wall St. Journal