Hidden Away screens virtually nationwide from 5/28 to 6/2.

Elio Germano turns in a tour-de-force performance as Naïve painter Antonio Ligabue in Giorgio Diritti’s melancholic and forceful biopic. Fragments of Ligabue’s upbringing, his early dealings with mental illness, his expulsion from Switzerland and relocation to his ancestral (deeply impoverished and soon to be Fascist-controlled) Italy, his being forced into a psychiatric ward, and his eventual arrival at a measure of artistic success are presented with dimensionality and grandeur that offer a fascinating counterpoint to Ligabue’s own rawly emotional paintings. The result is an absorbingly kaleidoscopic and empathetic portrait of a tortured visionary out of joint with the unaccepting society that surrounds him.