An unconventional portrait of painter Frida Kahlo and photographer Tina Modotti. Simple in style but complex in its analysis, it explores the divergent themes and styles of two contemporary and radical women artists working in the upheaval of the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution.
An intimate portrait of a peasant-turned oil painter transitioning from making copies of iconic Western paintings to creating his own authentic works of art.
Something Dancing About Her is an affectionate portrait of Pegi Nicol MacLeod, a charismatic yet relatively unknown painter. Shedding fresh light on her place in Canadian art history, director Michael Ostroff chronicles the life of this remarkable creative spirit who threw herself into painting, left-wing politics and love affairs with equal enthusiasm.
Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post-hurricane New Orleans to the separation barrier on the Palestinian West Bank. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. Exit Through the Gift Shop tells the incredible true story of how an eccentric French shop keeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner.
A thoughtful portrait of a renowned artist, this documentary shines the spotlight on New York City painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. Featuring extensive interviews conducted by Basquiat's friend, filmmaker Tamra Davis, the production reveals how he dealt with being a black artist in a predominantly white field. The film also explores Basquiat's rise in the art world, which led to a close relationship with Andy Warhol, and looks at how the young painter coped with acclaim, scrutiny and fame.
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.
In rocky Newfoundland, renowned French artist Jean Claude Roy gathers his paints and sets off to face the day. Whether it be freezing snow, violent wind, or pouring rain, he commits vibrant colors to canvas and conquers the day by weaving crooked beauty out of difficulties.
As her 80th birthday is approaching, Vera Klement, an oil painter in Chicago, adamantly starts yet another new figure painting: a portrait of an artist under oppression, an homage to Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovitch.
A documentary on the painter Antonio López and his day-to-day work.
The Victorian era is often cited for its lack of sexuality, but as this documentary reveals, the period's artists created a strong tradition surrounding the classical nude figure, which spread from the fine arts to more common forms of expression. The film explains how 19th-century artists were inspired by ancient Greek and Roman works to highlight the naked form, and how that was reflected in the evolving cultural attitudes toward sex.
The Cinema According to Dalí
Janina Ramirez explores the BBC archives to create a TV history of Leonardo Da Vinci, discovering what lies beneath the Mona Lisa and even how he acquired his anatomical knowledge.
A documentary about surrealist artist Salvador Dali, narrated by Orson Welles.
A look at the feud between graffiti artists King Robbo and Banksy.
We go behind the scenes and into the minds of artists as they capture, commemorate, and, at times, condemn our presidents.
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.
"I especially hope to inspire young women, because I often feel like so much emphasis is put on how beautiful you are, and how thin you are, and not a lot of emphasis is put on what you can do and how smart you are. I'd like to change the emphasis of what's important when looking at a woman." Filmed in San Francisco in 2000, Margaret Kilgallen (1967-2001) discusses the female figures she incorporated into many of her paintings and graffiti tags. Loosely based on women she discovered while listening to folk records, watching buck dance videos, or reading about the history of swimming, Kilgallen painted her heroines to inspire others and to change how society looks at women. Three of Kilgallen's heroines—Matokie Slaughter, Algia Mae Hinton, and Fanny Durack—are shown and heard through archival recordings. Kilgallen is shown tagging train cars with her husband, artist Barry McGee, in a Bay Area rail yard and painting in her studio at UC Berkeley (source: Art21).
This film explains what James Ensor (1860-1949) meant for the development of art and makes palpable where he got his inspiration from.
From award-winning director Phil Grabsky comes this fresh new look at arguably the world’s favourite artist – through his own words. Using letters and other private writings I, Claude Monet reveals new insight into the man who not only painted the picture that gave birth to impressionism but who was perhaps the most influential and successful painter of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Despite this, and perhaps because of it, Monet’s life is a gripping tale about a man who, behind his sun-dazzled canvases, suffered from feelings of depression, loneliness, even suicide. Then, as his art developed and his love of gardening led to the glories of his garden at Giverney, his humour, insight and love of life is revealed. Shot on location in Paris, London, Normandy and Venice I, Claude Monet is a cinematic immersion into some of the most loved and iconic scenes in Western Art.
The film offers exclusive and intimate insights into how and why the classically trained artist risked rejection to revolutionize the traditional Chinese ink art form in Singapore.