VIS Readies Series About Artemisia Gentileschi

ViacomCBS International Studios (VIS), a division of ViacomCBS Networks International (VCNI), has begun developing a series depicting the life of Artemisia Gentileschi.

Slated to begin production in 2021, the project will tell the story of the famed artist, known for her violent, seductive autobiographical portraits, and who later became an iconic figure of the modern-day feminist movement. For the series, VIS has optioned the rights to Mary Garrard’s nonfiction academic text, Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art, which includes 400-year-old transcripts of the artist’s rape trial from the Florentine archives.

Producer Frida Torresblanco (Pan’s Labyrinth, The Assassination of Richard Nixon, Dancer Upstairs, Disobedience) and Jill Offman, managing director at 66 Media and former managing director of ViacomCBS International Studios U.K., will serve as executive producers on the scripted series.

Jill Offman said: “I have been obsessed with Artemisia since I saw a single painting of hers in Italy. Passionate, fierce, masterful; Artemisia’s work spoke of her lived experience, the experience of a female artist in Renaissance Italy that remains just as relevant today. While Artemisia’s empowering and exhilarating work is finally getting the wider recognition it deserves in galleries, I am thrilled to be working with Frida and the team at ViacomCBS International Studios to bring her vision to the screen.”

Frida Torresblanco said: “I’m honored to team up with Jill Offman and the ViacomCBS International Studios team. I couldn’t be more passionate about giving Artemisia a voice and bringing her timely story to the screen. Now more than ever, the inspiration that her life and her art provides is needed. There is a strong connection with this sort of young and brave woman who can overcome abuse and turn it into a legacy of genius. This will be a contemporary feminist piece that is at once provocative and transgressive, invoking the spirit of our present moment in an eloquent and elegant way.”