"THE THIEF COLLECTOR" // SXSW 2022

BY MATEO MORENO

THE THIEF COLLECTOR, the captivating new documentary featured at this years SXSW film festival, is so unbelievable that it seems like it fell out of a Hollywood movie script. So much that the reenactments include Glenn Howerton from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia to really nail down how unbelievable this true story is. In 1985, a woman acting as a distraction and a man wearing an obvious fake mustache, walked into the University of Arizona Museum of Art and simply walked out with Williem de Kooning's "Woman-Ochre," worth hundreds of thousands of dollars at the time. When the employees noticed it gone, they saw it was simply cut out of its frame. The painting then just...disappeared, not to be uncovered until the couple's estate sale. How did this meek and mild-mannered couple walk away with one of the biggest art crimes of modern day?

At the time of the theft, the painting was worth $400,000. Now it's valued at $160 million and that's one of the least surprising things about this wild story. The couple at the center of the heist, Jerry and Rita Alter, are no longer with us to tell the why's and how's behind their thievery. We only have clues and stories they left behind, including several other rare pieces of art that were also found at their estate, not to mention Jerry's book of fiction that possibly might be a collection of confessions. The pride of the Alters were their vacations and they took them all the way to the end of their life, without selling this famed painting. Instead, it seems they stole it for themselves, a much more rare kind of art theft. Director Allison Otto frames a fascinating tale and wildly entertaining documentary that seems to be too strange to be real, yet it all is. It's a wild ride, one that surely will have Hollywood barking at its heels asking, "How did we not think of this first?"

GRADE: A

DIRECTED BY Allison Otto FEATURING Glenn Howerton, Sarah Minnich, Scott Takeda, Matt Pittenger SELECTED AS PART OF THE 2022 SXSW FILM FESTIVAL. FOR MORE INFO: THE THIEF COLLECTOR