Documentary Tells Complicated Story Of Local Artist Peter Anton
(CBS) -- A documentary playing at the Siskel Film Center Sunday afternoon aims to tell the complicated story of a prolific local artist.
Peter Anton has been drawing portraits, painting and making other kinds of art for 70 years, mostly in his home in East Chicago, Indiana.
The 83-year-old is the subject of "Almost There," a documentary co-directed and co-produced by Dan Rybicky and Aaron Wickenden.
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The pair met Anton at Whiting's Pierogi Fest in 2006 where he was drawing children's portraits, says Rybicky.
At first, he says, they didn't even want to make a movie about him. They just wanted to help him fulfill his last life wish - to show his work publicly.
Rybicky says just ahead of an exhibit that Rybicky and Wickenden set up at Intuit, an art center in Chicago's West Town, a charge from Anton's past surfaced and threatened to derail the show.
They kept filming because about a year after Anton's exhibit, he was forced to move out of his decrepit home and into a retirement center in Calumet City, says Rybicky.
Anton came to the film's sold-out premiere Friday night and took questions along with the directors.
Rybicky is hopeful "Almost There" will air again after this weekend, but hasn't confirmed anything yet.
