NEW YORK, NY.- Cargo Film & Releasing announced that it has acquired North American distribution rights to Georgia O’Keeffe: The Brightness Of Light, about the life and art of the iconic American artist, starring Claire Danes as the Voice of Georgia O’Keeffe with narration by actor Hugh Dancy. Cargo will release the film theatrically for special screenings on and around Mother’s Day this May, with a nationwide digital launch set for June 1. Produced and directed by Academy Award and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Paul Wagner (The Stone Carvers) and his American Focus producing partner Ellen Casey Wagner (Windhorse).

Georgia O’Keeffe is widely revered as the “Mother of American Modernism” and the greatest woman artist of the 20th century. In the 1920s, O’Keeffe became famous for her paintings of flowers, bones, and the beauty of nature. She posed nude for shocking photographs by her lover, Alfred Stieglitz, but denied that her paintings depicted sexual imagery. In the 1970s, living in her beloved New Mexico, she emerged as an iconic role model for American women.

“Georgia O’Keeffe: The Brightness of Light is a luminous and revelatory film. It not only celebrates O’Keeffe’s extraordinary achievements, but reveals the richness of her inner life, the depth of her feelings and the complexity of the woman behind some of the most iconic paintings of the 20th century. Just when we think we know O’Keeffe, Paul and Ellen Wagner’s definitive portrait shows us there is still so much more to discover. Cargo is thrilled to bring the film to wider mainstream audiences this Mother’s Day and to partner with American Focus on its nationwide digital release,” said Cargo VP, Daniel Cantagallo.

“Early on, the world of museums and art historians recognized this as the definitive film about Georgia O’Keeffe. Even more exciting has been the response from tens of thousands of people, especially women, in sold-out screenings across the country who have embraced the film as meaningful and inspiring for them at a deeply personal level,” said Director Paul Wagner.

“In the last years of Georgia O’Keeffe’s life, curator Sarah Greenough of the National Gallery of Art worked with her on an exhibit and catalogue of O’Keeffe’s art and letters.The artist urged Greenough to set two standards for the show,” said producer Ellen Casey Wagner. “We have aspired to the same two standards for our film – to make it honest and to make it beautiful.”

Notably the documentary was filmed everywhere that Georgia O’Keeffe lived and worked including locations in Canyon, Texas, Humpback Rocks, Virginia, Lake George, New York, O’Keeffe House, Abiquiu, NM, O’Keeffe House, Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, Taos, New Mexico, University of Virginia, D.H. Lawrence Ranch, New Mexico, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, Shelton Hotel, New York City, York Beach, Maine and Palo Duro Canyon, Texas.

Georgia O’Keeffe: the Brightness of Light features music by Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, cinematography by Dyanna Taylor and Mark Anthony Dellas, produced by Ellen Casey Wagner and Paul Wagner, written and directed by Paul Wagner, producer and director of more than fifty documentary and dramatic films over a fifty-year career.