Hockney, The Queen and the Royal Peculiar

Marcello, l'artiste duchesse

Michael Palin discovers the story of 17th-century Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi. He unearths not only her paintings, but a complex and difficult life.

Tate Britain is now holding the first major retrospective of Whistler in three decades. This blockbuster exhibition promises to reawaken the world to just how important Whistler is to art history, uniting world-famous masterpieces with rarely seen works. Exhibition on Screen will bring these stunning works and the incredible story behind them to cinemas around the world while the exhibition is still running, bringing this truly global artist to a global audience. This will be an unmissable chance to get to know this visually spectacular artist and the influence he has had on those who followed.

An inspiring 75min DIY documentary film on new art and the young artists behind it. It was all filmed on the heat of live action of the first NOVA Contemporary Culture Festival, July and August 2010 in São Paulo, Brazil.

In the early 20th century, one of the biggest stars of the Parisian stage was a Black artist who has since been forgotten: the clown Chocolat. This film by Samia Chala and Thierry Leclère tells the extraordinary story of this former Cuban slave who captivated the Lumière brothers, inspired the painter Toulouse-Lautrec, and later influenced writers such as Jean Cocteau. The meteoric rise of Chocolat—who was physically struck and mocked on stage by the "white clown" Footit—reflects the French public's discovery of the "Black man" during the era of colonial exhibitions and the Third Republic. It is a story that still resonates today. Drawing on exceptional archival footage, Chocolat’s epic life story is recounted by historian Gérard Noiriel and actor Marcel Bozonnet, both of whom brought the clown back to life on stage.

Louzine is a place uniting several music styles and several destinies. Men and women work there, who have come together because they master music instruments and have almost all had the same type of life: exile. Louzine is a mecca for tolerance concerning music. Gnawa music plays with rock and blues, chaâbi (traditional from Algiers) is on familiar terms with jazz, Kabyle music dances with Celtic sounds. This is where groups like Orchestre National de Barbès, Zerda, Thalweg, Gaâda, Cheikh Sidi Bémol could develop, thanks to such fecund diversity in which Breton bagpipes and North African qarqabous joyfully mingle, and free improvisation mixes with unchanging traditional chorus. All songs, be they in Arabic, Kabyle, French or English, tell about home, about love, hope, immigration, daily life, and are often full of humour.

The film tells the story of James Morrison’s early years, painting the tenements of Glasgow, through to his dramatic encounter with a polar bear while painting melting icebergs in North West Greenland. As the artist struggles with imposing blindness, the film follows James, as he prepares for what turned out to be his last ever public exhibition at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh in January 2020.

When 74-year-old Robert Tilley agreed to take photographer Ting Ting Chen on a road trip across Newfoundland, neither could have predicted the deep, cross-generational friendship that would blossom between them, nor how Robert's role in Ting Ting's art would challenge traditional ideas of the artist-muse relationship. This touching short film explores the concepts of aging, memory and identity while demonstrating the power of creative connection.

A portrait of the American artist Ray Johnson (1927-1995), based on a personal interpretation of Johnson’s avant-garde strategies, using the telephone and the internet as primary sources for sound and image.

Contemplates the contribution of Puerto Rican artist Cossette Zeno.

When four jazz musicians—trumpeter Serge Adam, pianist Benoît Delbecq, bassist Francky Mwele, and drummer Emile Biayenda—prepare for an African tour with the aim of engaging in dialogue with the musicians they meet along the way, certain clichés prove hard to shake. The jazzmen themselves are well aware of this; after all, isn't their very starting point a desire to avoid them? Musical curiosity must be reciprocal, and, after all, jazz is surely the territory that—even if not strictly shared—serves as an initial "no man's land" for an encounter. Beyond that lies the adventure...

In the spotlight of global media coverage, the first transgender woman ever to perform as Don Giovanni in a professional opera, makes her historic debut in one of the reddest states in the U.S.

This film is a portrait of hypnotist and artist, Marcos Lutyens. It examines the idea of incorporating hypnotism into art through the filmmaker participating in a hypnotic induction.

An examination of the art of pottery through the works of two world renowned potters –Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada. The film traces the entire process of pottery making, beginning with the digging of clay and its preparation, and on through the long sequences of pods being thrown on the wheel.

How much of your identity can you outsource? In an attempt to escape her workaholism, visual artist Karina Beumer hires multiple substitutes for herself. What do the substitutes gain from assuming someone else's identity? And what does it cost Karina? It's about losing control and finding yourself.

When the world chooses silence, one artist chooses to speak - turning her brush into a weapon and her canvas into a battleground.

This short film presents an unusual Beverly Hills store called the Patio Shop, where trash is turned into art.

Sophie Marceau, à voix haute

Roger Boussinot directed this episode of the French television show Italiques, which features an overview of the art and career of Fantastic Planet illustrator Roland Topor. It aired on August 8, 1974.

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s voyage of spiritual atonement to the Ivory Coast shortly before his death is the inspiration for Ivoirian Philippe Lacôte’s To Repel Ghosts, a captivating re-enactment of the artist’s experience.