Artist Apolonia Sokol, Compared To A Young Frida Kahlo, Takes Center Stage In Oscar-Contending Documentary ‘Apolonia, Apolonia’

deadline.com:

The French artist Apolonia Sokol – focus of the Oscar-shortlisted documentary Apolonia, Apolonia – has been compared to the great Mexican painter Frida Kahlo.

She concedes there may be a few parallels, beginning with something of a physical resemblance. “I was joking a little bit about that — the fact that we have the unibrow and the mustache,” Sokol laughs. “Maybe these are similarities.” On a more substantive level, both artists describe themselves as almost possessed by the creative urge. “I paint because I need to,” Kahlo once said.

In the documentary directed by Lea Glob, Sokol comments, “I can’t tell the difference between my identity and my work. But there really is no difference.” There’s another parallel between them. “What is so interesting about Frida Kahlo is that she was one of the first artists to actually create her own mythology, her personal mythology, for her paintings. ‘Personal mythology’ is a term that we use all the time now, but, before, this word didn’t exist,” Sokol tells Deadline. “She’s building a character with all the paintings.

And maybe what is happening with me and the film is that Lea did that for me. She created my mythology.” Part of the mystique of Apolonia – her mythology – is the effortless way she holds the viewer’s attention throughout the film.