Private Project

Wrestling the Angel – An Artist's Passage

A fine art painter transforms through a life-threatening crisis to reveal significance in everyday beauty, Aesop's fables and the story of Jacob Wrestling the Angel, and how we can live life more deeply. Ann Arnold, the artist, lives and works in Berkeley, California

  • Jonathan Villet
    Director
    Finding Snow White, The Englander Compromise of 2022
  • Jonathan Villet
    Writer
    Finding Snow White, How Dare The Angel Sing, The Englander Compromise of 2022, From Columns to Cool, I Love the Zine
  • Fiona McDougall
    Producer
    Finding Snow White, How Dare the Angel Sing, I Love the Zine, Victorian Houses & their owners, The Englander Compromise of 2022 , How Dare The Angel Sing, From Columns to Cool
  • Fiona McDougall
    Director Photography
    Finding Snow White, How Dare the Angel Sing, I Love the Zine, Victorian Houses & their owners, The Englander Compromise of 2022 , How Dare The Angel Sing, From Columns to Cool
  • Jonathan Villet
    Editor & Music Design
    Finding Snow White, How Dare The Angel Sing, The Englander Compromise of 2022, From Columns to Cool, I Love the Zine
  • Ann Arnold
    Key Cast
    "Protagonist"
    Fanny in France, numerous exhibitions, Art in the Making: Essays by Artists About What They Do, published by The Fisher Press
  • Ann Arnold
    Illustrations for Animation
    Fanny in France, numerous exhibitions, Art in the Making: Essays by Artists About What They Do, published by The Fisher Press
  • David Gonzales
    Animations
    Zap Media
  • Fiona McDougall
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Documentary, Short
  • Runtime:
    23 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    September 1, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    20,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States, United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States, United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Berkeley, CA
    United States
    November 2, 2024
    Test Screening
    To ensure the quality of the film and the clarity of its storytelling, we made a test screening to get audience feedback which allowed us to finalize the film and also for press coverage to help generate excitement about the film.
Director Biography - Jonathan Villet

Jonathan Villet is a filmmaker providing multiple roles – creative director, writer, interviewer, camera, and editor. He founded OneWorld Communications, a media creation company in San Francisco in 1999 (www.OneWorldSF.com) which primarily originates media for public programs to help people improve their own lives. He spearheaded communications campaigns in digital, web, social, streaming, radio, and social channels. He worked extensively for the United Nations in Italy, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Sudan, and other countries as a writer, media producer, project manager and trainer to create communications promoting disease eradication, sustainable development and environmental protection. He lives in San Francisco.

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Director Statement

This documentary shows how a woman creates meaning and beauty through her art in a way that sustains her through a life-threatening crisis. She inspires me.

Ann Arnold, a Berkeley-based artist, describes her life experience alongside her gorgeous oil paintings, painted ceramic tiles and book illustrations for Alice Waters of Chez Panisse. She retells Aesop’s fables and the Old Testament story of Jacob wrestling the Angel, which we show in animations using her watercolors. Ann is delightful, humorous, and thought-provoking, and I want to bring my experience of her to audiences through this film.

I first met Ann as a university student at Cowell College, UC Santa Cruz in the mid-1970s. Much later in 2022 I discovered she was diagnosed with cancer. Within a few days she was to commence a year-long chemo and radiation treatment.

I, with Fiona McDougall, Australian Producer, acted quickly to interview her in her studio, on camera. We did not know if Ann would survive the following year. In this first part of the film, Ann conveys her life philosophy as reflected in her fine artwork. The film recommences a year later after the cancer treatment has transformed her. At this point she reveals even deeper insight into what matters in life, as she creates and completes new artwork. One painting she finishes focuses on a seashell which came from, and returns to, the turbulent ocean, a poetic metaphor for the world “spinning around” us, as she says.

When you experience Ann Arnold in this film, I believe your own inner resilience and optimism for life and friendships, and “to become who you are” as Ann describes it, will be deeply nourished, too.