This documentary tells the story and meaning of Jacob and His Twelve sons, a series of thirteen canvases painted by Francisco de Zurbarán in Seville around 1640. Although it may have been meant for the Americas, nothing is known about these works until they were acquired at auction by the Londoner merchant James Mendez in the early eighteenth century. A few years later, in 1756, a significant gesture in the midst of debate over the emancipation law for English Jews was made by Bishop Richard Trevor of Durham, who obtained these paintings and hung them in his dining room at Auckland Castle, where they still remain. Today, thanks to the initiative of a financier from that area, Jacob and His Twelve Sons have become the engine of regeneration of a community in northern England.

During the renovation of its usual headquarters, the Zurbaráns have been exhibited in Dallas (Meadows Museum), New York (The Frick Collection) and Jerusalem (Israel Museum). Following this international journey, the film involves well-known scholars in Spanish painting, but also the promoters of an ambitious project that uses art as a tool for social transformation.

Arantxa Aguirre holds a doctorate in Spanish Literature and has published the books Buñuel, lector de Galdós (Pérez Galdós prize, 2003) and 34 actores hablan de su oficio, a sequel to her documentary Hécuba, nominated for a Goya film award in 2007. She has worked as assistant director to Mario Camus, Basilio Martín Patino, Pedro Almodóvar and Carlos Saura, among others. Prominent among her documentaries are the prizewinning El esfuerzo y el ánimo (2009), American Swan in Paris (2011) and Dancing Beethoven (2016) – the latter also nominated for Goya, Forqué and Platino awards – which have been shown in commercial cinemas in several countries. In 2020 she was named a full member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando.

Presentation at the 2020 Seminci film festival
in Valladolid
Screenings at the Círculo de Bellas Artes
in Madrid

“Pocas veces un producto audiovisual es capaz de representar la simbiosis del arte con la vida, desde la del pintor en el origen a la del público moderno que se encuentra con su historia […]. Acompañado por una excepcional banda sonora, hace patente lo que el arte tiene de representación y lo enfrenta con aquello que en la nuestra realidad (los gestos, las convenciones, los propios museos, incluso los pubs de Auckland) cumple una idéntica función, formalismo o liturgia, de modo que arte y vida se confunden”, Jesús García Calero, ABC

“Un viaje conceptual o ideológico como vemos, pero también verdaderamente estético, pues Aguirre logra transportarnos a esas épocas en las que Zurbarán y sus hijos pictóricos viajan a través del tiempo y el espacio”, Javier Mateo Hidalgo, El Imparcial

“A través de más de una docena de especialistas y de una impecable fotografía en blanco y negro, Aguirre se traslada de Dallas a Cáceres, Madrid, Jerez de La Frontera, Grenoble, Cádiz, Nueva York, Jerusalén, Valladolid o Sevilla, para explicar las vicisitudes de las misteriosas pinturas”, Elsa Fernández-Santos, El País

“La película, que combina imágenes en blanco y negro y a todo color, se desarrolla a lo largo de un viaje y en ese sentido, considera Aguirre, ‘es una road movie donde todos los escenarios son muy importantes y actúan como personajes sucesivos de la historia'”, Charo Ramos, Diario de Sevilla

«Bellísimo documental dirigido por Arantxa Aguirre en el que ‘[en] cada pintura tenía que estar el alma de cada plano’», Martín Carrasco, Hoy