[CPProt.net] Hotline: Hub fest offers Gardner theft doc

[Museum Security Network / Cultural Property Protection Net (Ton Cremers)]

Hotline: Hub fest offers Gardner theft doc
By Dean Johnson
Friday, April 22, 2005

This weekend's Independent Film Festival of Boston is also screening an
85-minute documentary about Boston. ``Stolen,'' directed by Rebecca Dreyfus,
is a documentary about one of the most controversial incidents in the
history of Hub culture - the 1990 art theft from the Isabella Gardner
Museum. A collection valued at more than $300 million was stolen, including
Vermeer's ``The Concert,'' and works by Degas, Manet and Rembrandt. None has
been recovered. 
 
     ``Stolen'' revolves around art detective Harold Smith and the sometimes
madcap trail he follows that leads to a wild array of characters ranging
from Sen. Edward Kennedy to Southie's best known and most-wanted criminal,
Whitey Bulger. 
 
     The film is an expanded version of the engaging 60-minute documentary
``The Great Gardner Art Heist,'' which aired on Court TV in late 2003.
Screenings are scheduled for today (6:30 p.m., Somerville Theatre), tomorrow
(11 a.m., Museum of Fine Arts) and Sunday (2:30 p.m. Brattle Theatre). For
more information, go to iffboston.org.