A contemplation of art and adventure in the southern wilds of New Zealand by both a landscape photographer and an adventure filmmaker. This film is the unexpected result of their two unique perspectives.
Shot over five years. A unique document of the creative work of the most representative artist of her generation. She is a painter (she creates a 240 m mural in the film), and a photographer of icons, which reflect everything human that the spirit contains. Life and thought of an essential artist, creator over three decades of an internationally recognized work and deserving of the National Photography Award. “The Look of Ouka Lele” is the story of how the creativity of a genius develops, his passion and his struggle in thought, painting and photography. Art and existence, united by the effort, talent and beauty of a creator in eternal struggle.
This rare film tells the strange, disquieting and protracted story of the restoration of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous masterpiece, The Last Supper. Some say the results of the restoration are glorious. Others have called them tragic. Da Vinci’s famously fragile fresco was always going to be a challenge for its secretive Italian restorers. No one, however, could have foreseen how problematic and strange their task would become. Marked by a series of extraordinary mishaps, mistakes, and miscalculations, the incredible restoration is hilarious to watch but may have resulted in the loss of a masterpiece.
For the whole of his long life Emil Nolde, the leading German Expressionist, luxuriated in colour. Before the First World War in Berlin he made many paintings of the theater, music-hall and opera; he loved flowers and even coaxed a garden out of the salty soil of the Baltic coast, where he had built himself an isolated house. His parents were Frisian peasants and he loved the landscape of North Friesland: it was the theme of many of his pictures. But the Nazis disapproved of his work and finally forbade him to paint at all. Although Nolde was already in his seventies when this happened, no political regime could stifle his vision. At great danger to himself he continued to work, making watercolour sketches the size of postcards, which he called 'unpainted pictures,' meaning them to serve as sketches for the large oils he would paint when he was free. And he did outlive the Nazi regime, marrying a twenty-eight-year-old woman in 1948 and painting up until the year before he died.
A montage, using documentary material filmed during the war, shows the beginnings of an air attack and Londoners entering shelters. From the silent deserted streets, the film moves underground into the world of Henry Moore's shelter drawings. People sit along subway platforms, looking after their children, settling down for the night, sleeping in bunks and on the floor. Above ground London burns. Henry Moore used the eye of a sculptor in portraying the stolidity and enduring patience of a besieged people. This film brings together a unique series of drawings which are some of the most remarkable achievements of an artist during wartime. Eliminating all narration, it explores, on several metaphoric levels, the very nature of human consciousness and creativity.
"What we were trying to do was the ultimate form of architecture, which was predicting how society would use space, land and time." Curtis Schreier, ANT FARM Space, Land and Time: Underground Adventures with Ant Farm is the first film to consider the work of the renegade 1970s art/architecture collective Ant Farm, best known for its iconic land-art piece Cadillac Ranch. Radical architects, video pioneers, and mordantly funny cultural commentators, the Ant Farmers created a body of deeply subversive multidisciplinary work that questioned the boundaries of architecture and everything else in the process. Incorporating breathtaking archival video, new footage shot over ten years and animation based on zany period sketches, this film is about the joy of creation in a time when there were no limits. —Beth Federici
Citizen Lane is an innovative mix of documentary and drama that delivers a vivid and compelling portrait of Hugh Lane, one of the most fascinating and yet enigmatic figures in modern Irish history. A man of multiple contradictions, by turns infuriatingly parsimonious or extraordinarily generous, a professed nationalist and a knight of the realm; a monumental snob and a fearless campaigner for access to the arts.
Francis Bacon: Fragments of a Portrait explores the recurring themes in Bacon’s work, his influences and his life. The documentary is accompanied by a haunting score specially composed by Edwin Astley for the production.
From the legendary times of Romulus and Remus to the present day, the compelling story of the eternal city's twenty-five centuries of civilization traces the rise of Christianity over paganism through studies of Vatican art treasures.
A film record of an exhibition of the late work of Paul Cezanne, organized by The Museum of Modern Art and the Reunion des Musees Nationaux in Paris. The camera moves across details of paintings, as well as details of Cezanne’s studio, providing an intimage, close-up view of the artist’s work. The narration is provided by Cezanne’s own words, taken directly from records of correspondence. 22nd Annual San Francisco International Film Festival Participation- Communication Competition, 1978.
Born in Livorno, Tuscany, artist Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) lived a short, tormented life, narrated here from an original point of view, that of his young common-law wife, Jeanne Hébuterne.
Jackson Pollock said, “he makes the rest of us look academic,” Mark Rothko acknowledged him as a “myth-maker” and Clement Greenberg called him “a highly influential maverick and an independent genius.” Clyfford Still, one of the strongest, most original contributors to abstract expressionism, walked away from the commercial art world at the height of his career. Extremely disciplined, principled, and prolific, Still left behind a treasure trove of works like no other major artist in history. With a wonderful mosaic of archival material, found footage and audio recorded by the artist himself, Lifeline paints a picture of a modern icon, his uncompromising creative journey and the price of independence.
Explores the incredibly complex backstory of Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber. This exquisitely crafted inquiry into the rationale of this mythic figure situates him within a late 20th century web of technology—a system that he grew to oppose. A marvelously subversive approach to the history of the Internet, this insightful documentary combines speculative travelogue and investigative journalism to trace contrasting countercultural responses to the cybernetic revolution.
About Swedish artist, painter, sculptor and set designer Sven "X-et" Erixson, presented with Lars Johan Werle's music and accompanied by readings from various literature and poetry.
A film about the artist Daniel Spoerri. It's actually a film about a thought by Daniel Spoerri: a film almost without Daniel Spoerri, it's actually mostly acted out by a child - to say no less than that everything somehow goes on in life, even if you die in between.
Captures the sculptor Marisol posing among her work.
Marisol has been posed against a light-coloured background and carefully lit from left and right. Her face emerges from the dark mass of her hair. The film is slightly out of focus throughout. At one point she glances off-screen, then resumes her gaze into the camera.
A film about the work of the artist most famous for her monuments such as the Vietnam Memorial Wall and the Civil Rights Fountain Memorial.
Americans are preoccupied with the news, but need an escape from many of the events reported in the news. These escapes in the past have included dime store novels. The most accessible of these escapes is what are known as the funny papers, the set of serialized comic strips that are included within many newspapers. They appeal to all socio-economic classes, and all ages. Some of the earliest known from the late 19th century include the Yellow Kid, Little Nemo, Happy Hooligan, the Katzenjammer Kids, Mutt & Jeff, and Bringing Up Father. Many cartoonists are seen in action. Some originated their characters, while others have taken over following the passing of the originator. The joy of many comic strips are the absurd and the fantastical, which are limited only by the imagination of the cartoonist. Others are grounded in reality, which add to their poignancy within the public mindset.
The tumultuous history of the Louvre Museum, founded in 1793, and its fabulous art collections, an immortal testimony to the destiny of France and all of Europe.