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Chasing Cezanne
Nearly thirty years ago thieves walked into a remote Massachusetts home and stole seven paintings. Among them was a Cezanne, one of the most influential paintings in art history. They belonged to Michael Bakwin. His mother, heiress to a vast mid-West meat packing fortune, had created a fabulous collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings in the 1920s and 30s.

The prime suspect for the robbery ? a local man called David Colvin - was murdered shortly afterwards and for twenty one years the trail went cold.

Meanwhile Bakwin employed a private detective and lodged the stolen paintings on the Art Loss Register, a database of stolen art run by an Englishman, Julian Radcliffe. In 1999 Lloyds underwriters in London were asked to insure a Cezanne for transport to England. They looked the painting up on the Art Loss Register, found it had been stolen from Bakwin and contacted Radcliffe. Complex negotiations followed involving Radcliffe and a mysterious Panamanian registered company called Eerie International which claimed to be holding the paintings. A deal was struck: the company handed over the Cezanne but was allowed to keep the other six lesser works.

The company also had to put in a sealed envelope the name of individual behind Eerie International. The Cezanne was returned to Bakwin??.. and he sold it for $30 million.

Another five years passed and Radcliffe received a call from the London auction house, Sotheby?s. Four of the remaining Bakwin paintings had been offered for sale. Radcliffe went to court claiming the first agreement had been under duress. He won. Better than that the judge ordered that the sealed envelope be opened to reveal the name of the man who had kept Bakwin?s paintings all these years. It was a Massachusetts lawyer, Robert Mardirossian ? the lawyer for David Colvin the original suspect. This film follows the twists and turns, the deals and double dealing that after 30 years led to the recovery of one of the most important paintings of the twentieth century.