Predictions of Fire

Unknown short stories from the past, the present and the future of fascism and its relation to the economic interests of each era. We will travel from Mussolini’s Italy to Greece under the Nazi occupation, the civil war and the dictatorship; and from Hitler’s Germany to the modern European and Greek fascism.

Taking its lead from French artists like Renoir and Monet, the American impressionist movement followed its own path which over a forty-year period reveals as much about America as a nation as it does about its art as a creative power-house. It’s a story closely tied to a love of gardens and a desire to preserve nature in a rapidly urbanizing nation. Travelling to studios, gardens and iconic locations throughout the United States, UK and France, this mesmerising film is a feast for the eyes. The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism features the sell-out exhibition The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement, 1887–1920 that began at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and ended at the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut.

THE STORY WON’T DIE, from Award-winning filmmaker David Henry Gerson, is an inspiring, timely look at a young generation of Syrian artists who use their work to protest and process what is currently the world’s largest and longest ongoing displacement of people since WWII. The film is produced by Sundance Award-winner Odessa Rae (Navalny). Rapper Abu Hajar, together with other creative personalities of the Syrian uprising, a post-Rock musician (Anas Maghrebi), members of the first all-female Syrian rock band (Bahila Hijazi + Lynn Mayya), break-dancer (Bboy Shadow), choreographer (Medhat Aldaabal), and visual artists (Tammam Azzam, Omar Imam + Diala Brisly), use their art to rise in revolution and endure in exile in this new documentary reflecting on a battle for peace, justice and freedom of expression. It is an uplifting and humanizing look at what it means to be a refugee in today’s world and offers inspiring and hopeful vantages on a creative response to the chaos of war.

A portrait of the day-to-day operations of the National Gallery of London, that reveals the role of the employees and the experiences of the Gallery's visitors. The film portrays the role of the curators and conservators; the education, scientific, and conservation departments; and the audience of all kinds of people who come to experience it.

Art, auctions, huge valuations of individual works, a market full of enigmas. The inaccessibility of the art world and its business mechanisms, incomprehensible to many, have always worked on the imagination. However, the incredible growth of interest in buying art in Poland over the past few means that the curtain of mysticism must be slowly falling. A look at the Polish art market, which with the political transformation has changed from a marginal and obscure curio to a modern, professional machine, opening for some artists of the youngest generation the gates of success inaccessible to their predecessors.

After starting a painting business right before the housing crash, a filmmaker drives over 35,000 miles to track down the people who saw it coming and look ahead to the consequences of a decade of secret bank bailouts and 0% interest.

Musings on life and literature in this student drama made by the Cambridge Film Unit.

The video revolution of the 1970s offered unprecedented access to the moving image for artists and performers. This Is Not a Dream explores the legacies of this revolution and its continued impact on contemporary art and performance. Charting a path across four decades of avant-garde experiment and radical escapism, This Is Not a Dream traces the influences of Andy Warhol, John Waters and Jack Smith to the perverted frontiers of YouTube and Chatroulette, taking in subverted talk shows and soap operas, streetwalker fashions and glittery magic penises along the way.

Bjørn Nørgaard and a team of Czech glass artists in the demanding process of creating a grave monument for Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik of Denmark.

Odvaha

Michael Moore's view on how the Bush administration allegedly used the tragic events on 9/11 to push forward its agenda for unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.

Carlo McCormick was invited to curate an East Village Art show at a gallery in Richmond, Virginia. Filmmaker Tessa Hughes-Freeland took filmic evidence of the infamous exhibition that featured downtown artists such as David Wojnarowicz, Marilyn Minter, Luis Frangella and more painting naughty murals while on acid.

The political ad "Peace Little Girl" aired during the 1964 presidential campaign ushered in a new era of the television attack ad. The campaign also reshaped the American political landscape in other significant ways ultimately ending up with the establishment of the contemporary geopolitical map of red and blue states. Includes interviews with historians and participants in the campaign.

Les chiens-loups

This is a 1991 documentary film about the legendary artist and filmmaker, Joseph Cornell, who made those magnificent and strange collage boxes. He was also one of our great experimental filmmakers and once apparently made Salvador Dali extremely jealous at a screening of his masterpiece, Rose Hobart. In this film we get to hear people like Susan Sontag, Stan Brakhage, and Tony Curtis talk about their friendships with the artist. It turns out that Curtis was quite a collector and he seemed to have a very deep understanding of what Cornell was doing in his work.

New York based artist, Cindy Sherman, is famous for her photographs of women in which she is not only the photographer, but also the subject. She has contributed her own footage to the programme by recording her studio and herself at work with her Hi-8 video camera. It reveals a range of unexpected sources from visceral horror to medical catalogues and exploitation movies, and explores her real interests and enthusiasms. She shows an intuitive and often humorous approach to her work, and reflects on the themes of her work since the late 1970s. She talks about her pivotal series known as the `Sex Pictures' in which she addresses the theme of sexuality in the light of AIDS and the arts censorship debate in the United States.

Jo; or The Act of Riding a Bike is Zefier's third film.

The journey of Senator Margaret Chase Smith from Skowhegan to Washington D.C. included obstacles such as 1950s gender bias and McCarthyism. Along the way Senator Smith became the first woman in history to serve in both the U.S. House and Senate. Hosted by Jack Perkins, the film includes insightful interviews with Senators Olympia Snow, Susan Collins, and Bill Cohen.

“What kind of person do you think former President Park Geunhye is?” Sohn Seokhee, a journalist, gives a clear and sharp answer that he “shares the common ideas that people in our country have.” That common idea has led millions to bring candles to the streets, correcting a thread of history that has gone awry, and gather a sense of hope among people. Candlelight Revolution portrays the voices of citizens from various generations, political figures of different parties, and the witnesses of an administration under improper influence. It is a documentary that identifies the genuine structure of politics and society by following how Park entered politics along with government records up until March 10.