PRODUCED & DIRECTED BY TAMRA DAVIS

“Lively and touching… A thoroughly engaging film about an inimitable New York painter.”
– John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter

“Tamra Davis creates a dazzling sense of the ‘80s New York art scene.”
– Caryn James, Newsweek

“Haunting! A moving meditation of a life cut short at 27.”
– Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

“Tamra Davis has surpassed the art world’s expectations with THE RADIANT CHILD, the newly definitive Basquiat documentary, which superbly sets out the life and times of Jean-Michel Basquiat with never-seen-before first-hand footage of the artist; source and anecdotal interviews and quotes from almost every player in the 1980’s art scene in New York. Davis has her own masterpiece of which to be proud.”
– Elliot V. Kotek, Moving Pictures Magazine

The meteoric rise and fall of Jean-Michel Basquiat, born 1960. In the crime-ridden NYC of the 1970s, he covers the city with the graffiti tag SAMO. In 1981 he puts paint on canvas for the first time, and by 1983 he is an artist with “rock star status.” In 1985 he and Andy Warhol become close friends and painting collaborators, but they part ways and Warhol dies suddenly in 1987. Basquiat’s heroin addiction worsens, and he dies of an overdose in 1988. The artist was 25 years old at the height of his career, and today his canvases sell for more than a million dollars. With compassion and insight, Tamra Davis details the mysteries that surround this charismatic young man, an artist of enormous talent whose fortunes mirrored the rollercoaster quality of the downtown scene he seemed to embody.

Official web site for the film

USA • 2010 • 90 MINS. • ARTHOUSE FILMS