Spain, April 14, 1931. The Second Republic is born. From the beginning, the writer Miguel de Unamuno is considered one of the ethical pillars of the new regime. Five years later, on December 31, 1936, a few months after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), Unamuno dies at his home in Salamanca, capital of the rebel side, led by General Francisco Franco, and main center of dissemination of its propaganda apparatus.
Film director and screenwriter Seijun Suzuki (1923-2017), who in the sixties was the great innovator of Japanese cinema; and his collaborator, art director and screenwriter Takeo Kimura (1918-2010), recall how they made their great masterpieces about the Yakuza underworld for the Nikkatsu film company.
In 1864, the Spanish poet Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-70), suffering from health problems, retires to the monastery of Veruela. Far from the noise and worldly activity of the capital, he immerses himself in the landscape of the mysterious Moncayo mountain. There, he discovers a new world full of legends that converge in a small village located at the foot of the mountain: Trasmoz, the Village of the Witches, the only officially cursed village in Spain.
A moving account, in his own words, of the personal life and work of the brilliant Czech filmmaker Miloš Forman (1932-2018): his tragic childhood, his major contribution to the cultural movement known as the Czech New Wave, his exile in Paris, his troubled days in New York, his rise to stardom in Hollywood; a complete existence in the service of cinema.
Portrait of Andy Goldsworthy, an artist whose specialty is ephemeral sculptures made from elements of nature.
A portrait of Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), a genius of modern architecture, whose life passed between glory, scandal and tragedy.
In this hybrid political thriller and verité portrait documentary, Sara Nodjoumi, working with co-director and husband, Till Schauder, makes her directorial debut with this personal film, diving into the mystery surrounding the disappearance of more than 100 “treasonous” paintings by her father, seminal Iranian modern artist Nickzad Nodjoumi.
French artist Maurice Chevalier (1888-1972), a legend of stage and screen, was an accomplished singer, actor and entertainer, who embodied the charm of his native Paris throughout a decades-long career that brought him fame in Europe and America and left for show business history a vast repertoire of masterful classic songs and captivating film performances.
In the sixties, Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) built a house on the remote island of Fårö, located in the Baltic Sea, and left Stockholm to live there. When he died, the house was preserved. A group of very special film buffs, came from all over the world, travel to Fårö in search of the genius and his legacy. (An abridged version of Bergman's Video, 2012.)
Nobody captured the atmosphere of 1990s Berlin better than German photographer Daniel Josefsohn, who died in 2016 at the age of 54, leaving his mark in advertising with his irreverent aesthetic and punk sensibility. It was his spontaneous, imperfect images shot for an MTV campaign in 1994 that first made him famous.
A portrait of the Spanish-German actor Daniel Brühl, a versatile performer capable of moving easily from the gentlest to the darkest role.
This documentary by independent filmmaker Ken Harrison provides a look into the contemporary Texas art world of the mid-‘70s. Shot in 1975, Jackelope is loosely divided into three segments, each focusing on three young artists: James Surls, George Green, and Bob Wade. The documentary captures each artist in the more casual moments of their lives, capturing their ideas about art, the artistic process, Texas, and other topics in the process.
A journey into the mind of French actor and director Jean-Pierre Mocky (1929-2019), author of films both playful and profound, of an impressive richness.
A journey through the meteoric rise and tempestuous story of the legendary American actor Al Pacino, from the Bronx of New York to worldwide stardom.
From the rains of Japan, through threats of arrest for 'public indecency' in Canada, and a birthday tribute to her father in Detroit, this documentary follows Madonna on her 1990 'Blond Ambition' concert tour. Filmed in black and white, with the concert pieces in glittering MTV color, it is an intimate look at the work of the icon, from a prayer circle before each performance to bed games with the dance troupe afterwards.
The life story of Richard Pryor (1940-2005), the legendary performer and iconic social satirist who transcended racial and social barriers with his honest, irreverent and biting humor.
A look at the life and work of the iconic US actor Charlton Heston (1923-2008); the embodiment of many mythic heroes who was both a staunch defender of the Civil Rights movement during the sixties and a spokesman for the National Rifle Association in his later years. The extraordinary and controversial public and personal career of one of the greatest film personalities of all time.
In the sixties, Peter Handke was one of the first to show how the business works: the writer as angry young man and pop star of the literary scene. As soon as he was on the bestseller lists, he turned his back on the hype. For many years, he has lived and worked in his house in a Parisian suburb, more quietly and more hospitably. Peter Handke's precise, free gaze becomes perceptible in his texts, his conversations, the cosmos of his notebooks.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, the seminal work of Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), continues to find new readers and inspire artists and creators around the world more than a century after its publication in 1891, because it was endowed with all the elements necessary to make it an undisputed heritage of world literature.
The story of Russian writer and Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) and his masterpiece, The Gulag Archipelago, published in Paris in 1973, which forever shook the very foundations of communist ideology.