Clive Barker: The Man Behind the Myth

This film is not a classic portrait but a documentary using fiction to bring Martin Suter’s novels to life while introducing us to the author behind the stories on a whole new level. ‘Fantasy is usually more true than reality itself’ says Suter.

A portrait of the brilliant American writer Truman Capote (1924-84) and the New York high society of his time.

Elmore Leonard, author of more than 40 novels, is renowned in the literary community. From his westerns and early novels of crime based in Detroit and South Florida, right through his complex and virtually plotless later work, Elmore Leonard dissected an America whose founding sins have continued to haunt it all the days. Leonard’s depiction of America is as real as Twain’s Hannibal, Faulkner’s Mississippi and Steinbeck’s Monterey. The new documentary ELMORE LEONARD: “But don’t try to write” explores the prolific author’s legacy and his influence on generations of writers. The documentary features exclusive images and previously unseen home movie footage, family photographs, and in-depth interviews with both literary experts and those who knew him well, including colleagues, family, and childhood friends.

How the inventor of the detective story became his own greatest mystery.

In his lifetime, Thomas Merton was hailed as a prophet and censured for his outspoken social criticism. For nearly 27 years he was a monk of the austere Trappist order, where he became an eloquent spiritual writer and mystic as well as an anti-war advocate and witness to peace. Merton: A Film Biography provides the first comprehensive look at this remarkable 20th century religious philosopher who wrote, in addition to his immensely popular autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, over 60 books on some of the most pressing social issues of our time, some of which are excerpted here. Merton offers an engaging profile of a man whose presence in the world touched millions of people and whose words and thoughts continue to have a profound impact and relevance today.

Hardly anyone knows the artist, but almost everyone knows her paintings: Tamara de Lempicka, icon of the 1920s. Her art deco paintings of women in cars or in evening dress adorn book covers and break auction records. But who was she? The ARTE documentary by Grimme Prize-winning author Sylvie Kürsten ventures a self-portrait of Lempicka, narrated and played by Nicole Heesters.

One of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century, Arthur Miller created such celebrated works as Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, which continue to move audiences around the world today. He also made headlines for being targeted by the House Un-American Activities Committee at the height of the McCarthy Era and entering into a tumultuous marriage with Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe. Told from the unique perspective of his daughter, filmmaker Rebecca Miller, Arthur Miller: Writer is an illuminating portrait that combines interviews spanning decades and a wealth of personal archival material, and provides new insights into Miller’s life as an artist and exploring his character in all its complexity.

Griffin Dunne’s years-in-the-making documentary portrait of his aunt Joan Didion moves with the spirit of her uncannily lucid writing: the film simultaneously expands and zeroes in, covering a vast stretch of turbulent cultural history with elegance and candor.

A documentary about the production of From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) and the people who made it.

Perpetuating art was the main objective in the life of visual artist, filmmaker and cultural manager Chico Liberato, who died in January, 2023. A pioneer of animation cinema in Bahia, he left a legacy for the area, and even in his family.

Mixing archival footage with interviews, this film celebrates one of Los Angeles's most influential painters and Chicano art activists from the 1970s.

Shortly after World War II, over 1,000 paintings were found in a cellar in southern France. The paintings were created by a young Jewish woman named Charlotte Salomon. She painted her turbulent life story in a unique creation called: ‘Life? Or Theater? – A Tri-Colored Operetta.’ Death and the Maiden unravels the story behind her creation.

Interviews and archival footage weave together to tell the story of the Master of Suspense, one of the most influential and studied filmmakers in the history of cinema.

imagine... follows celebrated British TV writer Russell T Davies as he prepares to return as the showrunner of Doctor Who – with two Doctors and bigger ambitions.

An analysis of the sources of inspiration that fed the imagination of the British writer, poet and philologist J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973), great master of epic fantasy.

A riveting and emotional journey into the world of writer William S. Burroughs, a man considered as cold as an iceberg on a winter night.

Dick Perez, official Baseball Hall of Fame artist for over 20 years, painted the game's history and every inductee - a project he continues in his 80s. This childhood immigrant's portraits changed commemoration of America's iconic pastime.

Raised in the small all-Black Florida town of Eatonville, Zora Neale Hurston studied at Howard University before arriving in New York in 1925. She would soon become a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, best remembered for her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. But even as she gained renown in the Harlem literary circles, Hurston was also discovering anthropology at Barnard College with the renowned Franz Boas. She would make several trips to the American South and the Caribbean, documenting the lives of rural Black people and collecting their stories. She studied her own people, an unusual practice at the time, and during her lifetime became known as the foremost authority on Black folklore.

La Garoupe, a beach in Antibes, in 1937. For one summer, the painter and photographer Man Ray films his friends Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar, Paul Eluard and his wife Nusch, as well as Lee Miller. During these few weeks, love, friendship, poetry, photography and painting are still mixed in the carefree and the creativity specific to the artistic movements of the interwar period.

The documentary story of Harlan Ellison