Czech Glass

For nearly half a century, Dale Chihuly has traveled the world, creating and installing his artwork. From sculptures to large-scale installations, his blown-glass works revolutionized the American studio glass movement. In Short Cuts III, Chihuly's role as both artist and teacher is revealed, uncovering the stories and the process behind some of his most celebrated projects, from working with students in his hometown of Tacoma, Washington, to exhibitions in prominent botanic gardens worldwide.

The Pilchuck Glass School outside Seattle has been going for 43 years. Started by Dale Chihuly, when glass in America was at its infancy. This school is responsible for making the US Studio Glass movement what it is today. It's an international institution now, bringing students from all over the world. It started in 1971, during the peace movements, Flower Power and war in Vietnam This documentary tells the story of it's beginnings, and how it's now made the Pacific NW, the largest glass art center in the world.

The expressive power of a craft that shapes generations. Directed by Matos Barbosa, Vidros is a striking work that captures, with rare sensitivity, the harshness of labor, the intensity of hard work, and the beauty of blown glass in Oliveira de Azeméis. Set to the immersive rhythm of Django Reinhardt’s jazz, the film transforms repetitive gestures, heat, and the fragility of the material into pure cinematic expression, preserving the memory of a craft that spans generations. More than a documentary, Vidros immortalizes a memory—a visual testimony to the dedication, rhythm, and poetry hidden within the art of glassmaking, seen through the eyes of our filmmaker.

Documentary on the marijuana pipe glassblowing industry and culture surrounding it.

This short documentary, shot in the glass factories of Leerdam and Schiedam, demonstrates how glass blowers do their work. But thanks to the superbly edited ballet of working hands and the sequence of mechanical motions of the engines, is it especially a cinematic tour de force. That the industry can’t do without man’s involvement is shown in the scene where we hear the voice of Haanstra himself counting the bottles on the conveyor belt, until one bottle breaks…

Willy Johansson – Der Glasmeister aus Norwegen

The history and present of Czech glass and its use in various fields of human activity.

The man who made glassblowing an American art form meets the challenge of a lifetime with Stephen Wynn's 1998 commission of the world's largest glass sculpture. Watch as Chihuly creates, for the lobby of the luxurious Bellagio Resort, Fiori di Como, an explosion of color and light featuring over 2,000 "flowers" hand-blown from molten glass.

Short film on the manufacture of glassware

Examines the mesmerising construction of clear crystal glass pieces created by the craftsmen of Waterford. The process from the intense heat of the furnace to glass blowing, shaping, cutting, honing, filling and finishing is all depicted in this celebration of the art of creation of Waterford Glass. Academy Award Nominee: Best Live Action Short - 1976.

Head gaffer and founder of Wimberley Glassworks Tim de Jong, Glassblower Wes Sweetser and Assistant Glassblower Jaclyn Ritter, shed light on why they're so passionate about glassblowing, the adversity that comes with being an artist and the importance of community.

Based on the novel by Maria Gripe, this is the story of two children, Klas and Klara, growing up in the poor Swedish countryside of the mid-19th century. Their father Albert is a glass-blower, famous for his beautiful vases, but still unable to earn enough money for his wife Sofia and the children. At a spring fair a distinguished gentleman arrives and buys all of Albert's glassware. After this nothing will be the same again. Klas and Klara are kidnapped and taken to a strange castle...

Genetics professor Adam Slope clones his wife Dawn after she dies in a fire but the woman he creates is different than the woman he loved, so he tries over and over, in a desperate attempt to get her back exactly as she was.

The film gives a complex insight into the gap in political reality of Slovakia - one of the EU countries - which became visible after an investigative journalists Ján Kuciak and his fiancée has been brutally murdered at their home. Following mass demonstrations led to substantial changes in the country's government, but the film doesn't follow history, but much more the universal processes behind the curtain. Journalists, (ex?)-officers of secret services, lawyers and analysts helps to reveal detective story in search of whom ordered to murder a journalist and an innocent girl. But main concern of the film is to reflect mechanisms of oligarchy and mafias (including the Italian) to blackmail key players of the system, to influence public perception and to penetrate police, judiciary and the government in their efforts to rule the country in the ways leading to their profits.

In 1940 twenty Canadian Beavers were brought to 'Tierra del Fuego' island in southern Patagonia for commercial fur production. However, beavers having no natural predators, quickly spread throughout the island, causing massive destruction of trees threatening the entire Patagonian forests rivers and species. Why wildlife conservationist are convinced that 150.000 beavers must be killed? Why some of the most recognized specialist are convinced that an eradication is not possible? Meanwhile truism is capitalizing on the situation: a man dressed as a beaver passes out flyers promoting a famous sky resort: 'Cerro Castor' - Beaver Hill. Hunters claim for subsidies, scientists are researching, rangers do what they can and restaurants tray to offer beaver meat to tourist.

A man with a perspective like no other on the planet. The leading structural engineer of the World Trade Center oversees its construction, haunted by its fall ever since. A guru in high-rise design. Driven by his values as a pacifist and activist and the woman engineer who emboldened, expanded and ultimately saved the man she loved. About fulfillment, fragility, and a fighting spirit.

Colour, form, area - this is the formula of the greatest pioneer of abstract painting. Kandinsky came to art late in life, but his impact through Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) and Bauhaus paved the way for modern art. In 1913, he created one of the first abstract pictures, the theoretical basis of which was inspired by his essay Uber das Geistige in der Kunst (On the Spiritual in Art). Accompanied by Mussorgsky's Pictures From An Exhibition Labarthe goes on a sensual journey which makes the soul resound with colours and forms. "A picture has to resound and must be bathed in an inner glow." Kandinsky

A documentary exploring the underworld of online gaming.

A Slovenian short documentary film.

Tuareg, los guerreros de las dunas