Celebrating Billy Connolly's 75th birthday and 50 years in the business, three Scottish artists - John Byrne, Jack Vettriano and Rachel MacLean - each create a new portrait of the Big Yin. As he sits with each artist, Billy talks about his remarkable life and career which has taken him from musician and pioneering stand-up to Hollywood star and national treasure.
Artist David Choe has led a life of high risk, from hedonistic excesses to being imprisoned at a maximum security facility in a foreign country, and yet has been dramatically rewarded for his exploits. Life didn't change much when he traded a $60k fee in favor of stock in a start-up called The Facebook, but now he is estimated to be worth over $250 million, highlighting a colorful career filled with giant street art installations, porn star affairs and investigative reporting for companies like Vice and CNN. Director and childhood friend Harry Kim guides us through the fantastically surreal life of Choe featuring interviews and appearances by Kevin Smith, Eli Roth, Sasha Grey, Sean Parker, and Shepard Fairey.
Filmed on location in Montana and Washington State, this 1976 biography of poet and teacher Richard Hugo features readings of some of his most famous poems as well as interviews with his family and friends.
The story of an exceptional painter talent, the Belgian-Hungarian Kim Corbisier who left a brilliantly powerful oeuvre behind after her tragically short and intense life. And a camera at her filmmaker friend. The mesmerising and often shocking footage of the camera bear witness to Kim's struggles with methadone addiction and, above all, her identity crisis caused by a series of unfortunate and criminal accidents in her family. After the unfinished attempts, with this film, the filmmaker is realising a project they had planned together 10 years ago.
Black Is the Color highlights key moments in the history of Black visual art, from Edmonds Lewis’s 1867 sculpture Forever Free, to the work of contemporary artists such as Whitfield Lovell, Kerry James Marshall, Ellen Gallagher, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Art historians and gallery owners place the works in context, setting them against the larger social contexts of Jim Crow, WWI, the civil rights movement and the racism of the Reagan era, while contemporary artists discuss individual works by their forerunners and their ongoing influence.
A documentary about the life and works of the artist M. C. Escher. Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) usually referred to as M. C. Escher, was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. These feature impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, architecture, and tessellations.
This ninety-minute film takes audiences on an epic journey across nine countries and over 1,400 years of history. It explores themes such as the Word, Space, Ornament, Color and Water and presents the stories behind many great masterworks of Islamic Art and Architecture. Narrated by Academy Award winning performer Susan Sarandon, this dazzling documentary reveals the variety and diversity of Islamic art. It provides a window into Islamic culture and brings broad insights to the enduring themes that have propelled human history and fueled the rise of world civilization over the centuries
Cartoneras is a documentary that grapples with Latin America’s urban realities, and the cardboard publishing movement that has emerged from these in the 21st century. Reflecting on the different contexts that propelled this form of community publishing, like Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis, the independent art scene, and the movements which formed around waste-pickers, the film’s narrative is developed through conversations with important actors from the cartonera world.
From the remote Australian desert to the opulence of Buckingham Palace - Namatjira Project is the iconic story of the Namatjira family, tracing their quest for justice.
A painter, a naked woman, and a camera. In this triple constellation we explore the power of the gaze and the roles it imposes on us. An artist's studio turns into the setting for questions about how we look at and perceive women. The naked skin of the model becomes the canvas for an audiovisual exploration of the ways in which seeing and being seen anchors us in our body. And how this body shapes our experience of the world and our role in it.
Enlightened by her biographer Roxana Robinson and art historian Barbara Buhler Lynes, co-founder of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, this documentary unfolds the fascinating trajectory of the artist who became an icon of American art. Featuring her works, her confidences - between interviews and excerpts of correspondence read by Charlotte Rampling - and her husband's photographs, this film explores the two inseparable passions that marked Georgia O'Keeffe's life and career: Alfred Stieglitz and New Mexico, which she never ceased to travel through, like a pioneer, in order to immerse herself in its Indian culture and its grandiose landscapes.
Asdrúbal Trouxe o Trombone
Through interviews and guerilla footage of graffiti writers in action on five continents, the documentary tells the story of graffiti from its origins in prehistoric cave paintings thru its notorious explosion in New York City during the 70’s and 80’s, then follows the flames as they paint the globe.
How did the Impressionists view the world? What relationship did they have with technique, with color, with light and with the universe of shapes that made up reality before their eyes? How were their works received? How did they go from being rejected by critics and the public to becoming among the most loved in the world in a few years? Secret Impressionists is an immersive journey into the intimacy of the Impressionists and their paintings which aims to offer a "privileged" visit that stimulates the spectators' curiosity and gives them a perspective on the works complementary to the live experience, allowing spectators in the hall to immerse themselves in the work of painters and grasp unpublished details.
The artist J.M.W. Turner is widely recognised as England’s greatest painter. Tate has the world’s finest and most extensive collection of his work. Turner at Tate explores Turner’s art through many of his best-known canvases and exquisite sketches and watercolours, all newly and exceptionally filmed in HDTV from the original artworks. Incorporating the landscapes and places that inspired the works, the film provides an overview of Turner’s life and - in an accessible and engrossing way - of critical approaches to his art. The film’s focus is Turner and England, and his work is considered against the radical social and political changes of the early nineteenth century. Turner at Tate is a film about ideas and history and landscape, a film about colour and light. Contributors include Tate curators Ian Warrell and David Blayney Brown, and art historians Sam Smiles and Barry Venning. Also featured on the DVD are ten additional short films, each of which considers in detail a major work.
This documentary offers an intimate look at the life and legacy of American abstract expressionist Franz Kline. Through personal memories and reflections from those who knew him—such as fellow artist Willem de Kooning, de Kooning’s wife Elaine, and other contemporaries—the film paints a vivid portrait of Kline’s personality, artistic spirit, and lasting influence. Known for his powerful black and white compositions and bold brushwork, Kline is remembered not only for his art, but also for his wit, warmth, and passionate approach to painting. The episode explores both his creative process and the deep friendships that shaped his career.
È questa la vita che sognavo da bambino?
In decades past, Native American artists who wanted to sell to mainstream collectors had little choice but to create predictable, Hollywood-style western scenes. Then came a generation of painters and sculptors led by Allan Houser (or Haozous), a Chiricahua Apache artist with no interest in stereotyped imagery and a belief that his own rich heritage was compatible with modernist ideas and techniques. Narrated by actor Val Kilmer and originally commissioned as part of an exhibit of Houser’s work at the Oklahoma History Center, this program depicts the artist’s tribal ancestry, his rise to regional and national acclaim, and the continuing success of his sons as they expand upon and depart from their father’s achievements. Key works are documented, as is Houser’s tenure at the Santa Fe–based Institute of American Indian Arts.
Follows the young people of Selma, Alabama's RATCo (Random Acts of Theatre Company) as they journey to New York City to share their story of hope, resilience, and overcoming.
EXHIBITION ON SCREEN open its fifth season with Canaletto & the Art of Venice, an immersive journey into the life and art of Venice’s famous view-painter. No artist better captures the essence and allure of Venice than Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto. The remarkable group of over 200 paintings, drawings and prints on display offer unparalleled insight into the artistry of Canaletto and his contemporaries, and the city he became a master at capturing. The film also offers the chance to step inside two official royal residences - Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle – to learn more about the artist, and Joseph Smith, the man who introduced Canaletto to Britain.