Turner's Thames

Stuck in a creative rut, filmmaker Gilda Pourjabar returns to Iran, her homeland, to talk with her brother Siamak, an illustrator based in Tehran. This encounter raises questions about their relationship to Western popular art, as they grew up in a culture that the current political regime describes as “westoxicated.” This documentary uses playful animations by Siamak, inspired by Franco-Belgian comics and rock concert posters, superimposed on archival footage of the most recent popular uprisings in Iran to become a logical collaboration for these artists who shared a record collection as children. Together, they examine how art slips through the cracks of repression to light the rebellious sparks in the hearts of young people.

A short documentary illustrating how art can influence public perception towards environmental issues. Green Patriot Posters is a highly acclaimed multimedia design campaign that challenges artists to deepen public understanding and ignite collective action in the fight against climate change. So far, it has reached five million people through print media, public space and digital culture. The film features interviews with key Green Patriot Posters contributors (Shepard Fairey, Michael Bierut, DJ Spooky, Mathilde Fallot) and its founders (The Canary Project, Dmitri Siegel).

A documentary about the Kosmos collective in Timisoara: a self-organized group of artists, curators, and musicians who revived a former textile factory.

A powerful portrait of Africa's most widely acclaimed contemporary artist El Anatsui. It gives an insider's view of the artist's practice, the ingenious steps and thousands of hours of labor that convert used bottle tops into huge, opulent wall hangings.

Rafael França: obra como testamento

A portrait of the day-to-day operations of the National Gallery of London, that reveals the role of the employees and the experiences of the Gallery's visitors. The film portrays the role of the curators and conservators; the education, scientific, and conservation departments; and the audience of all kinds of people who come to experience it.

Documentary about filmmakers of the New German Cinema who were members of the legendary Filmverlag für Autoren (Film Publishing House for Authors). Among them are Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Wim Wenders.

This film traces the elusive trajectory of Mark Rothko (1903-1970), the American master of abstract expressionism who called his work "a pharmacy for the soul." Moving from Latvia to the US as a child, he left Yale to paint, later inspired by Italy to create his iconic color fields. Full of vibrant colors, drama, and emotion, this subtle portrait makes his legendary art shine forth.

This is a 1991 documentary film about the legendary artist and filmmaker, Joseph Cornell, who made those magnificent and strange collage boxes. He was also one of our great experimental filmmakers and once apparently made Salvador Dali extremely jealous at a screening of his masterpiece, Rose Hobart. In this film we get to hear people like Susan Sontag, Stan Brakhage, and Tony Curtis talk about their friendships with the artist. It turns out that Curtis was quite a collector and he seemed to have a very deep understanding of what Cornell was doing in his work.

New York based artist, Cindy Sherman, is famous for her photographs of women in which she is not only the photographer, but also the subject. She has contributed her own footage to the programme by recording her studio and herself at work with her Hi-8 video camera. It reveals a range of unexpected sources from visceral horror to medical catalogues and exploitation movies, and explores her real interests and enthusiasms. She shows an intuitive and often humorous approach to her work, and reflects on the themes of her work since the late 1970s. She talks about her pivotal series known as the `Sex Pictures' in which she addresses the theme of sexuality in the light of AIDS and the arts censorship debate in the United States.

Taking its lead from French artists like Renoir and Monet, the American impressionist movement followed its own path which over a forty-year period reveals as much about America as a nation as it does about its art as a creative power-house. It’s a story closely tied to a love of gardens and a desire to preserve nature in a rapidly urbanizing nation. Travelling to studios, gardens and iconic locations throughout the United States, UK and France, this mesmerising film is a feast for the eyes. The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism features the sell-out exhibition The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement, 1887–1920 that began at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and ended at the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut.

Bronx, New York, November 2019

A wordless portrait of sculptor Jessica Jackson Hutchins shows us the artist in the process of transforming clay into uncanny forms.

It's a condition known as "hypertrichosis" or "Ambras Syndrome," but in the 1500s it would transform one man into a national sensation and iconic fairy-tale character. His name: Petrus Gonsalvus, more commonly known today as the hairy hero of Beauty and the Beast.

Recrear a Johannes Vermeer

A Brazilian performance artist Vanesa Cardoso living in Newfoundland, Canada explores the figures of her Pochinko clown, discovering a desire to expose the comedy of our deepest vulnerabilities - the very ones that make us human. A creative journey through Richard Pochinko's seven masks and six directions, Vanessa reveals her clown while musing on the personal drive and struggles that inspire her art.

Introduces the world of painter René Magritte through an assemblage of the painter's images. Includes statements by Magritte about his intentions and anecdotes from his friends Mesens and Scutenaire.

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.

An Austrian director followed five successful African music and dance artists with his camera and followed their lives for a year. The artists, from villages in Ghana, Gambia and Congo, were the subjects of Africa! Africa! touring across Europe, but they have unbreakable roots to their homeland and their families. Schmiderer lovingly portrays his heroes, who tell their stories about themselves, their art and what it means to them to be African with captivating honesty. The interviews are interwoven with dance scenes and colourful vignettes set to authentic music.

Caravaggio a Roma - Il viaggio del Giubileo