The Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907-54) is now among the most widely celebrated women artists of the twentieth century. 'I paint my own reality,' stated Kahlo, and her compelling, often disturbing self-portraits encompass an astonishingly wide emotional range. Frida Kahlo grew up in Mexico City and began painting while recovering from near-fatal injuries sustained in a road accident. This film traces the development of her art, linking specific images to the life-events they record. Frida Kahlo's marriage to the great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera brought her into contact with international artistic circles, and she was enthusiastically greeted as a fellow spirit by the European Surrealists. This film draws extensively on the extraordinary diary Kahlo kept during her last ten years, providing a vivid analysis of key works. Throughout the film Kahlo's combination of vibrant colour and striking imagery shows how she drew on the indigenous art traditions of Mexico to create one of the most powerful and sophisticated visual autobiographies of modern times.