Basel Tattoo 2015

Rooster Teeth’s Geoff Ramsey explores the subculture of tattoos and takes a crash course from a master tattoo artist.

Basel Tattoo 2013

Tattoo girls is a memoir of life as it is and of women as they are. A window to the lives of seven women from the same city where nothing is exactly as it seems and reality is often hidden behind illusions. It's a female centric-film showcasing about a group of ordinary women (within a range of ages), and their different styles of daily life, showcasing their stories and the impact they have on society as real, everyday women. We are living in a era of the importance and empowerment of women throughout the world, and this documentary aims to convey ideas and topics to be felt, absorbed and discussed.

A collection of footage and interviews with strange people and their exploration into the unusual and extreme side of body modification.

A look into the world of body piercing and suspension and the people who do it.

A short Documentary about Tattoo Artist Dustin Stephenson and his Struggle´s to survive during the first COVID-19 Pandemic in Summer 2020.

A documentary film based on the art of tattooing, tattoo artists and their clients, with interviews exploring the fascination for, and the reasons behind, choosing to be tattooed. The film builds up to long climactic scene, often since replicated in other films on the subject, featuring tattooed bodies displayed as art objects.

Narrated by JIM ROSE of JIM ROSE CIRCUS SIDESHOW fame, this video compiles snippets of some of the best parts of extreme fare such as the WHISKEY 911 videos (skating), CRUSTY DEMONS (dirt biking), and BLACK FLYS (surfing) and melds them together in a non-stop barrage of outlandish stunts and extreme body modification (check out the guy with the skull plate!) See CHRISTIAN FLETCHER nail a guy's scrotum to a wooden board; see SHAUN PALMER jump his snowboard over a moving freight train! Tattoos, Body Modification, Surfing, Skating, Bikes. Interesting look at counter culture, Beware though, not for the squeamish.

A visit with a master of the Oldest Art In The World: tattooing. Disabled by arthritis since the age of four, confined to a wheelchair, his growth stunted, Stoney St. Clair joined the circus at 15 as a sword swallower. A year later he took up tattooing, and traveled with circuses and carnivals for fifty years practicing his craft. As we watch him at work, we see the determination which led Stoney to use his crippled hands in an art where mistakes are permanent, and we realize Stoney has overcome his handicap to heal himself and others with the magic of symbols. The film ends with a visit by New Age tattoo master Don Ed Hardy, who receives a permanent souvenir by Old School tattoo master Stoney.

Japans tätowierte Helden

Basel Tattoo 2017

Tattooing — "the world's oldest skin game" — is the subject of this iconic documentary. Writer/director Geoff Steven scored a major coup by signing Easy Rider legend Peter Fonda as his presenter. Travelling to Aotearoa, Samoa, Japan and the United States, the doco traces key developments in tattooing, including its importance in the Pacific, prison-inspired styles, and the influence of 1960s counterculture. Legendary tattooists feature (including Americans Ed Hardy and Jack Rudy), while the closing credits parade some eye-opening full body tattoos.

In this "beautifully intimate and utterly unique piece of cinema", Toby Amies crosses the line between filmmaker and carer, trying to cope with the strange and hilarious world view of the fragile eccentric, Drako Zarharzar. A love story. Drako Oho Zaraharzar can remember modeling for Salvador Dali and hanging out with The Stones. But he can’t remember yesterday. Following a severe head injury, Drako Zaraharzar suffers from terrible memory loss, he can access memories from before his accident, but can’t imprint new ones. As he puts it, “the recording machine in my head doesn’t work”. Consequently, and as an antidote to depression he chose to live “completely in the now” according to the bizarre mottoes delivered to him whilst in a coma.

A bold reveal of a rose tattoo opens this 1980 documentary on tattooing in New Zealand. The potted history includes visits to tattoo parlours on K' Road and Hastings, and the studios of industry legends Steve Johnson and Roger Ingerton. Tattooists discuss public stigma, people's reasons for getting inked, and popular designs: sailors, serpents, swallows and tā moko. Made for documentary slot Contact, Skin Pics chronicles a time when "folk art has become high art".

A family story that reveals the fate of the Armenian women driven out of Ottoman Turkey during the First World War. The story of "Grandma's Tattoos" is a personal film about what happened to many Armenian women during the genocide In 1919, just at the end of World War I, the Allied forces reclaimed 90,819 Armenian young girls and children who, during the war years, were forced to become prostitutes to survive, or had given birth to children after forced or arranged marriages or rape. Many of these women were tattooed as a sign that they belonged to abductor. European and American missionaries organized help and saved thousands of refugees who were later scattered all over the world to places like Beirut, Marseille, and Fresno.Director Suzanne Khardalian

La peau du milieu

The documentary film, Tattoo, tells about teenage students who had tattoos performed on them during their art lessons at upper comprehensive school. This happened in the small Finnish town of Forssa in 1995.

Sailors in repose on an island paradise seemingly have no worries of war or danger — until a playful gesture is interpreted as an act of wilful aggression. Soon, the innocent act of slight slapping becomes a relentless and unforgiving orgy of open-palmed face-smacking.

His work illustrates people. Densha Tattoo reflects on craft, inspiration and the scene. — What is the essence of a human being? One stitch at a time. A portrait about the tattoo artist.

Horitoshi Sensei is one of the last accomplished masters of irezumi, the art of traditional Japanese tattoo. Pascal is a young French journalist specialized in tattoo who discovered Horitoshi’s designs in a magazine and felt in love with them. Although he does not have much money, Pascal decided to go to Tokyo to have all his back tattooed by Horitoshi. When the film starts, he is at his fourth trip, but his tattoo is far from being finished. Pascal is our guide in this travel to discover irezumi.