Ego: The Strange and Wonderful World of Self-Portraits

Challenging all notions of genre, Semi Colin is a living, breathing art installation. Part performance, part art, part social comment, Colin philosophizes on his life's obsessive work as an erotic artist.

Facing one of humanity’s biggest questions, ‘what is left of us after our death?’, this haunting documentary covers the author’s thought process on the idea of what might remains of us after we die, supported by the vision of an artist who decided to come back in Italy after spending forty-seven years in New York and turn his little apartment into a mausoleom where his death-filled artworks will lay along with his ashes. Raising questions like ‘are the things we create in our lifetime the mark of our existance?’ and ‘can the artist escape death trough the art objects?’ the documentary touches a vast variety of themes and ideas as well as paying a visit to one of the oldest mausoleums in ancient mythology, the Acheron River.

The Piccirilli family settled in New York City and started the largest and most prolific marble carving studio in America. For nearly 50 years, Piccirilli sculptors helped shape the architectural landscapes of Washington and New York through hundreds of monuments, memorials, and artworks, many of which are preserved in museums and private collections.

An intimate portrait of Eric Carle, creator of more than 70 books for children including the best-selling "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". At 82, Eric is still at work in his studio making books and creating art. As he methodically layers a tissue paper collage of the caterpillar, he describes the feeling he achieves working in his studio, the sense of being at peace, all alone, when everything grows quiet and it is just himself and his work. The film taps into that deep creative need in each of us, a spirit that started in Eric as a very young child and is unceasing today.

The inner world of the great painter Max Ernst is the subject of this film. One of the principal founders of Surrealism, Max Ernst explores the nature of materials and the emotional significance of shapes to combine with his collages and netherworld canvases. The director and Ernst together use the film creatively as a medium to explain the artist's own development.

The Faraway Nearby follows the tragic life of pioneer physicist Joseph Weber, whose pursuit of gravitational waves takes him on a dizzying journey from the height of acclaim to the depths of despair and disdain when he breaks the cardinal rule of science and clings to his ideas though his results can't be duplicated. Physicists, artists, and other creatives explore the emotional side of discovery and question whether the risk is worth the journey.

Contemporary artist Koki Tanaka sets up a booth at a Los Angeles flea market to sell palm fronds. "I tried to bring something very extreme into the flea-market context. I picked the palm fronds because they are the most useless things in California – they’re what we have to sweep away after a windy day. It was an experiment in registering people’s reaction to a fundamental question about the value of objects. And I was referencing two historical pieces: David Hammons’s Bliz-aard Ball Sale [1983], where he sold snowballs during winter in New York; and a Japanese manga called Munou no Hito [A Worthless Person, 1985], in which the protagonist sells stones by the riverside – stones being sold alongside stones. So both shared quite similar ideas." - Koki Tanaka

"Meat Joy is an erotic rite — excessive, indulgent, a celebration of flesh as material: raw fish, chicken, sausages, wet paint, transparent plastic, ropes, brushes, paper scrap. Its propulsion is towards the ecstatic — shifting and turning among tenderness, wildness, precision, abandon; qualities that could at any moment be sensual, comic, joyous, repellent. Physical equivalences are enacted as a psychic imagistic stream, in which the layered elements mesh and gain intensity by the energy complement of the audience. The original performances became notorious and introduced a vision of the 'sacred erotic.' This video was converted from original film footage of three 1964 performances of Meat Joy at its first staged performance at the Festival de la Libre Expression, Paris, Dennison Hall, London, and Judson Church, New York City."

In the fall of 1987, Philippe Haas accompanied the sculptor Richard Long to the Algerian Sahara and filmed him tracing with his feet, or constructing with desert stones, simple geometric figures (straight lines, circles, spirals). In counterpoint to the images, Richard Long explains his approach. Since 1967, Richard Long (1945, Bristol), who belongs to the land art movement, has traveled the world on foot and installed, in places often inaccessible to the public, stones, sticks and driftwood found in situ. His ephemeral works are reproduced through photography. He thus made walking an art, and land art an aspiration of modern man for solitude in nature.

Painter Zdzisław Beksiński, his wife Zofia and their son Tomasz, a well-known radio journalist and translator, were a typical and unconventional family, both at the same time. One of the father’s obsessions was filming himself and his family members. Using archival footage only, shot primarily by Zdzisław, as well many other materials, which have not been presented anywhere so far, the film tells a tragic story of the Beksińskis that has never ceased to fascinate Polish filmmakers.

Tell Them We Were Here is an inspirational feature-length documentary about eight artists who show us why art is vital to a healthy society and reminds us that we are stronger together.

Jim Moir (aka Vic Reeves) explores Video Art, revealing how different generations ‘hacked’ the tools of television to pioneer new ways of creating art that can be beautiful, bewildering and wildly experimental.

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.

African Underground: Democracy in Dakar is a groundbreaking documentary film about hip-hop youth and politics in Dakar Senegal. The film follows rappers, DJs, journalists, professors and people on the street at the time before, during and after the controversial 2007 presidential election in Senegal and examines hip-hop’s role on the political process. Originally shot as a seven part documentary mini-series released via the internet – the documentary bridges the gap between hip-hop activism, video journalism and documentary film and explores the role of youth and musical activism on the political process.

This MGM Passing Parade series short takes a look at changing definitions of art in the United States.

Lyonel Feininger's work is as individual and unmistakable as he is himself. As a classical modernist artist, he is difficult to categorize. He lived and worked in Germany for a long time. He began his career as a caricaturist, later became known as a painter and headed the printing workshops at the Bauhaus. His work cannot be classified as cubism or expressionism. The film visits places that inspired him, such as Paris, the villages around Weimar and, above all, the Baltic coast - many of which are reflected in Feininger's work and make the development of his oeuvre comprehensible.

Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo, better known as Pippa Bacca, was a 34 years old Italian artist. She crossed 11 countries involved in wars, hitchhiking with another Milanese artist, Silvia Moro, both wearing a wedding dress. This was a performance for peace, trust and hoping to prove that if you rely on others, you’ll receive good things only. After travelling many roads, the two artists decided to split for a while in Istanbul, planning to meet again in Byblos. Pippa left then, alone, and nobody heard from her again.

Max Gimblett: Original Mind documents the life and process of eccentric, creative genius Max Gimblett. One of New Zealand’s most successful and internationally prominent living painters, Gimblett has been working in America since 1962. The filmmakers spent a week in Gimblett’s Soho loft where he and his devoted studio assistants generously revealed the techniques and philosophy behind his beautiful art.

94-year old Esther, a pensioner with bad sight, is in search of her artist daugther’s public decoration. Endless phone conversations takes her through municipal bureaucracy and lost culture secretaries. Will she ever get an answer to the eternal question: Where does the art really go?

A documentary by Olivier Gonard, shot partly in Paris’s Musée d’Orsay, that examines Olivier Assayas' film Summer Hours, and its approach to art.