“A film about a man who tried to make a film about me” is how Banksy describes his first feature. The British graffiti artist is renowned for producing iconic street art and fiercely guarding his identity to avoid prosecution. Little surprise then, that he was unwilling to be filmed by an eccentric French shop owner named Thierry Guetta.
EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP traces Thierry’s attempts to capture the world of graffiti art in thrilling detail, following many of the best known vandals at work in the streets. We trace Thierry’s efforts to locate and befriend Banksy only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner – with spectacular results. An incendiary true story of low-level criminality, companionship and incompetence. The story of how one man set out to film the un-filmable. And failed.
The London newspaper ‘The Times’ once called Banksy “the true people’s painter”. His black-and-white images of kissing policemen and rioters throwing flowers are now popular icons. Banksy’s work can be seen on walls from post-hurricane New Orleans to the Palestinian West Bank. His graffiti combines wry humour with political comment – both of which can certainly to be expected from his cinematic debut, which he has dubbed “the world’s first street art disaster movie”.
In his film company dokumentar.no Lie has since 2008 been working as a film director, cinematographer and producer for documentaries. He works with the new Canon EOS 5D/7D with HD film, and edits in Apple's Final cut.
With Haiti mon Amour (Kjære Haiti, hva nå?) Lie went to Port-au-Prince after the earthqake with Ole Paus and others. We followed the money collected by the norwegian consert Dugnad for Haiti and NRK, and then given to Red Cross, Church Aid and UNICEF. It is edited as a low budget film essay, an montage of images. (se video below)
He has since 2007 worked on a documentary portrait – The Seduced Human – Jørgten Leth and Haiti on the danish renowned filmmaker Jørgen Leth (2011). This one-hour documentary is financed so far by the Norwegian Film Institute with 720 000 kroner – and will be released in 2011. (se video below)
Lie is also editor-in-chief for DOX, the leading European quarterly magazine for documentary films, published by the European Documentary Network. See PDFs of the last magaines below.
Lie has been the editor-in-chief and publisher for Morgenbladet between 1993-2003, and has been editor-in-chief/publisher of the Nordic edition of the monthly newspaper Le Monde diplomatique between 2003-08, where he now is still the publisher and regulary film critic.
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