In 1945, when the Allies liberated the concentration camps, they discovered thousands of secretly created artworks. With unprecedented access to paintings, drawings, etchings and sculptures held in collections around the world, BECAUSE I WAS A PAINTER conducts a gripping and fascinating investigation into art that captures, reflects and inspires in difficult times.
A young accountant finally pursues her dreams of becoming a painter.
Toulouse-Lautrec's sketchbooks are turned into an animated short.
Extract of rushes from the unfinished documentary project written and produced by Henri Langlois on Marc Chagall.
I had heard of a Chilean painter, author of a thousand paintings, who had disappeared long ago. I had been given an address on the banks of the Loire, at number 640 of a road that no longer existed. No one had been here for decades. Everything had remained there, as if someone had fled.
He was always busy making the absolute painting, one of Jaap Hillenius' sons says about his father. The artist who was killed in a car accident in 1999 steadily built, averse to conventions and trends, an autonomous oeuvre, indefatigably looking for the ultimate beauty. In daily life, he did so too; the artist wore out a throng of girlfriends, although in a sense he stayed faithful to both his wife and his only muse. He did not have the time to be a real father. 'With my father in the train with a Nuts bar', is the best childhood memory his sons have of him. Kees Hin tries to get closer to this complex man, who imputed a profoundly melancholic soul to himself, like the writer Marcel Proust, whom he admired so deeply. In three films, that play on the screen alongside each other and alternately appear in the foreground, via interviews - with people like his wife, his muse and his sons - and archive footage, we get to know more about his daily (emotional) life, his work and ideas.
Biographer Sir John Richardson and Picasso’s granddaughter, Diana Widmaier Picasso, are the star witnesses in a documentary that reassesses the artist’s output in the years before his death in 1973. The story is of a creative spirit finding new impetus in response to both death’s approach and the censure of contemporaries and critics. Those who were members of Picasso’s private inner circle – gossip about his lifestyle also helped to fire him back up – put the later work forward as some of his frankest, wittiest and most profound.
A thoughtful portrait of a renowned artist, this documentary shines the spotlight on New York City painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. Featuring extensive interviews conducted by Basquiat's friend, filmmaker Tamra Davis, the production reveals how he dealt with being a black artist in a predominantly white field. The film also explores Basquiat's rise in the art world, which led to a close relationship with Andy Warhol, and looks at how the young painter coped with acclaim, scrutiny and fame.
Whatever Comes Next is a documentary about the curious and dynamic life of Annemarie Mahler-Ettinger. The film portrays the painter and scholar, Annemarie Mahler. Born in Vienna in 1926, Mahler fled by herself as a twelve-year child to the United States and has since 1955 has lived in Bloomington, IN, and in the summers in Woods Hole, MA. The documentary portrays the artist's outer and inner lives, which bridge two centuries and two continents.
Národní umělec Josef Lada
Through vibrant colors and cluttered canvases, a 75-year-old artist reclaims freedom from a past of war and loss.
Caspar David Friedrich - Die Entdeckung der Unendlichkeit
Portrait of the painter Manuel Moldes, from Pontevedra, Spain, about the work he does in the preparation of a retrospective of his work.
Beth Moore-Love is perhaps the greatest living artist working in America today. Her works can be found in private collections throughout the United States and Europe. She is a national treasure and yet, she is virtually unknown. Filmmaker Larry Wessel is determined to change that with his nine year labor of love.
Filmed 2 years before his death, this documentary portrays New Brunswick folk artist Joseph Sleep (1913-1978) in his later life. He was born at sea and worked with and around boats, fish, carnivals, and animals most of his life. While convalescing during an extended period in the Halifax infirmary in 1973, he was encouraged to paint. What began is therapy and a pastime developed into a way of representing a lifetime of images and experience
Les plus grands peintres du monde : Henri Matisse
Looking for Lowry is an entertaining documentary film about the life and work of the much loved British artist L.S. Lowry (1887 – 1976). This contemporary new film illuminates Lowry’s extraordinary vision for the first time in high definition, as we meet those who knew him and those who have been inspired in our post-industrial age by his unique observations of our country and his powerful artistic legacy. Manchester-born rock star Noel Gallagher describes how Lowry’s life chimes with his own: “…for me it’s like when did you first hear the Beatles? Lowry has always been there… I guess all the people Lowry ever met are there in his paintings…”
Québec en silence
Edward et Jo Hopper, un si violent silence
Explore the life and work of the painter who formed a bridge between the Impressionist and Cubist art movements at the turn of the century.