Loving Vincent is not your average biopic: The upcoming movie, which tells the story of Vincent Van Gogh’s life and death through his paintings, is the first animated feature film ever to use oil paintings for all of its frames, according to the filmmakers. At 12 frames per second, that’s no small feat—it took more than 100 artists to make all of the paintings, which were based on Van Gogh’s own work.
This is the movie’s first official trailer, following a concept trailer. No words are spoken in the new trailer—instead, we simply watch paintings come to life to tell their own stories. The movie was directed by Polish painter and director Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman (who produced the 2006 film Peter and the Wolf, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Short). Loving Vincent was at least partially funded through Kickstarter, and apparently its artists went through a pretty rigorous selection process—including a three-week intensive training session in how to paint like Van Gogh. The plot, too, comes directly from Van Gogh’s work: It’s derived from 800 letters written by the painter himself.
