DocMiami International Film Festival

Paula Rego is that great rarity a Britain artist with an international reputation. Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate, describes her as a major figure who has 'taken her own childhood experiences, memories, fantasies and fears, and given them universal significance'. For Germaine Greer her work is both feminist and subversive; 'It is not often given to women to recognise themselves in painting, still less to see their private world, their dreams, the insides of their heads, projected on such a scale and so immodestly' Art critic Robert Hughes says simply that Rego is the 'best painter of women's experience alive today'. For 20 years Jake Auerbach's films have captured artists and their work. His subjects range from heroes of the past; Sickert, Titian and Rodin (a film described as 'the best film on sculpture ever made' by Sir Anthony Caro) to contemporary masters like Kitaj, Auerbach and Freud ('A beautiful and telling film, and somewhat disturbing too' The Guardian). Though described as arts films Auerbach says his documentaries are 'portraits of extraordinary people who make marvellous things, many of whom happen to be artists'. 'Paula Rego: telling tales' follows Rego over 12 months. During six interviews she talks with humour revealing the private stories that are woven into her pictures; she faces her demons, the demons that drive her to make work which keeps her 'monsters' at bay. The result is an intimate and funny film that allows us to peek into the private world of Paula Rego.