ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL
The Sleeper - The Lost Caravaggio
When an elderly woman in Madrid puts an old family painting up for auction, it sparks a chain of events that could rewrite art history. What begins as a modest sale soon becomes a high-stakes mystery involving experts, dealers and governments — all asking the same question: could this be a lost Caravaggio?
Director
Álvaro Longoria (The Propaganda Game)
With
(Documentary participants)
1h 16m • Rated M • Documentary • In English, Spanish & Italian with Eng subs
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The Sleeper - The Lost Caravaggio
Wed 6 May 7:00pm ncp
THESLEEP-0506-1900
...
All tickets must be prepaid online or at the counter.
Sales are subject to our cancellation policy. No phone bookings
ncp - no complimentary passes
cap - captioned for hard of hearing
The story unfolds less like a traditional documentary and more like a slow-burn thriller, driven by questions of provenance, ownership and belief. Deals are negotiated, reputations hang in the balance, and the painting itself becomes the centre of a quiet storm. There’s a fascination in watching expertise collide with ambition, and in seeing how the art world responds when something extraordinary might be hiding in plain sight. As one critic observed, it plays like a thriller — and it’s not hard to see why.
Film Notes
A gripping, real-life art-world mystery where truth rivals fiction.
Few artists carry the mythic weight of Caravaggio — a painter as famous for his radical style as for the turbulent life that surrounded it. The Sleeper – The Lost Caravaggio taps directly into that legacy, beginning with an almost absurd premise: a forgotten painting, casually sent to auction, suddenly suspected to be a long-lost masterpiece. From that moment, director Álvaro Longoria follows the ripple effect as curators, collectors and institutions scramble to assess its authenticity, each step raising the stakes.