Was the painting bought at a shady New Orleans auction house for a little over a thousand dollars really a Leonardo da Vinci? Known as the Salvator Mundi, this 2005 auction house purchase became the most expensive painting ever sold when, in 2018, it was again purchased — this time anonymously for $450 million.

But there’s more to the story than the lucrative find. The Lost Leonardo takes a look into the art, finance and political worlds as questions arise about the authenticity of the painting, who may be driving up the price, and the agendas behind the richest men and most powerful art institutions.

Director Andreas Koefoed first heard about this story when he was contacted by a producer in his home country of Denmark. Although he is not an expert in the art world, Koefoed was immediately interested in tackling the project.

“I felt this story had so many interesting components, just the fact that the painting was found in 2005, bought for $1,100, and then just 12 years later becoming the most expensive piece of art ever sold,” Koefoed says, adding further intrigue to the question of whether this piece of art was actually an authentic da Vinci.

With all its pieces and characters, this documentary is considerably different from his previous films, which were all far simpler in their structure.

“I normally make films where I follow one character going through a process and then the method is to be there at the key moments,” he states.

With so many characters at play in The Lost Leonardo, Koefoed knew he had to find a main character to follow throughout the story. The answer was the Salvator Mundi itself. This allowed him and his crew to track that journey through these different worlds — or as he calls them, “secretive worlds” — which led first through the art world, then the finance world, then the geopolitical world.

“You can see how people who got close to the painting believed that it was a real Leonardo da Vinci, and they had a vested interest in making it a da Vinci. The characters I met were really fascinating and really well-spoken, so it was pretty straightforward and yet a complex story to tell,” he says.

Many were willing to talk with Koefoed and were generous with their time and willingness to share their stories. This included the curator from the National Gallery in London who was involved in the speedy authentication of the Salvator Mundi.

From this point on though, the filmmakers were finding it harder and harder to find parties willing to speak.

“Some of the institutions: the National Gallery, Christy’s and the Louvre, the culture minister of Saudi Arabia, and others weren’t willing to speak. We met a lot of closed doors,” Koefoed admits. This presented an additional challenge because Koefoed wanted to tell the story first-hand through the sources close to it. He adds, “It also proved the point that the interest in the painting was so high that it was probably too risky for these institutions to speak out about it. When the stakes are so high, the truth gets lost.”

But it's not just the truth that gets lost, the Salvator Mundi is also now missing.

Crafting the story

Koefoed aimed to capture the key moments in the story and then try to connect these scenes in a way that made it easy to watch and engage with the character, so it’s not very different from a narrative film.

With so many different voices and opinions, they had to give a lot of thought behind how to tell the story in an engaging way. This was where the focus on the painting came into play. This allowed the journey of the painting to be told through key characters who got close to it. But Koefoed also knew that time needed to be spent on making sure the audience understood the nuances of the art world.

It was critical to give enough information for viewers to understand the story from da Vinci himself, to knowing what a sleeper hunter is, to how one authenticates a painting.

This is where the writers had a hand in crafting the story. And there were many: Five writers in all.

There were several subplots and stories throughout the journey, so the writers had to determine how much room each character should have. One aspect was realizing they had to return to the painting approximately every 2 minutes to keep a narrative spine. They also chose to tell the story chronologically starting in 2005 when the Salvator Mundi was discovered.

When Koefoed started out on the project, the story was already at a certain point. There were many knowns, but a few unknowns.

“We knew that it was in the possession of Mohammad bin Salman. The part of the documentary where it potentially is going to show up in the Louvre in Paris happened along the way. The authenticity issues were there from the beginning, but new voices would come in with their opinions and things would develop,” says Koefoed.

Part of creating this documentary, similar to most documentary filmmakers’ journeys, is being fluid and making space for new developments.

Becoming a Filmmaker

“I got interested in documentaries when I was 20. I had just been in Paris for one year studying music and political science and I felt like I wouldn’t become a musician and I didn’t have enough interest in politics to become a political scientist or diplomat, so I met some friends who worked on documentaries, and I started making small portraits of some of my friends who were musicians.”

Koefoed’s desire to tell these stories culminated into a career as he found a love for filming, editing and all the different processes of filmmaking. It was a way he felt he could invest himself.

After struggling to find a passion, he found filmmaking allowed him to become open to whatever story or interests that came his way.

Koefoed says, “In a way, it was a very easy choice because if I suddenly got interested in science, I could make a film about science.”

He adds that documentaries are a broad, general discipline but he also finds it specific because of the methods used: Shooting, editing and writing.

For those considering the documentary route, Koefoed recommends finding a story that’s not complex or maybe something personal.

“It could be a portrait of a friend or a father or a mother. I think the scope of it should be simple so it’s possible to make a short film,” he says. It would be a project in which the filmmaker operates the camera and edits [the footage] themselves to see how it feels.

“I think oftentimes people start out with very big ideas and films and it becomes too difficult and they’re dependent on having a budget. I think they should start with a non-budget project they can manage themselves within a short timeframe.”

While the Salvator Mundi’s 400-year history continues, its 12-year journey documented in Andreas Koeford’s The Lost Leonardo is likely to be its most intriguing.

The Lost Leonardo opens in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on August 13, 2021.