Submitted by Friday Harbor Film Festival.

The Director Series presents Benjamin Ree’s “The Painter and the Thief,” now playing on-demand at fhff.org through Sunday, Dec. 13. A scheduled livestream filmmaker Q&A session will follow. Audience members are welcome to participate. The cost to view this film is $5.95.

The Director Series provides movie lovers the opportunity to view impactful documentary films highlighting heroic adventures, sustainable agriculture, marine ecology, social justice, the environmental crisis, and human-interest stories.

Friday Harbor Film Festival will present films on-demand 24/7 for 10-14 days each month through September. Each will include a scheduled livestream, interactive Q&A with the filmmaker and expert panelists discussing the issues raised by the film. Q&A sessions will be recorded and be available on-line free of charge.

The ninth annual Friday Harbor Film Festival is scheduled for Oc. 14-24, 2021. FHFF is planning a hybrid event, including in-person venues and online screening.

Filmmakers are encouraged to submit their entries for consideration for both The Director Series and the October FHFF through the Film Freeway link at fhff.org beginning Dec. 15.

“The Painter and the Thief” follows Young Czech artist Barbora Kysilkova as she relocates from Berlin to Oslo to launch her career as a painter. In April of 2015, her two most valuable, large-format paintings are stolen — with care — in broad daylight from the windowfronts of Galleri Nobel in Oslo’s city center.

Desperate for answers about the theft of her paintings, Barbora is presented with an unusual opportunity to reach out to one of the men involved in the heist — Norwegian career criminal, Karl-‘Bertil’ Nordland.

Filmmaker Benjamin Ree begins to document the story after Barbora unbelievably invites her thief to sit for a portrait, capturing the unlikely relationship that ensues as the equally damaged duo find common ground and form an inseparable bond through their mutual affinity for art.

Next up in The Director Series is the Bristol Bay trilogy — “Red Gold” (by directors Travis Rummel and Ben Knight), and “The Breach,” and “The Wild” (both by director Mark Titus) — celebrating the Pebble Mine permit denial. These important feature films will screen Dec. 14-31. View all three films for only $3.