Exergo

Departing from peripheral details of some paintings of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, a female narrator unravels several stories related to the economic, social and psychological conditions of past and current artists.

De caballos y guitarras

A musical, and also a reflection on watching, on trying to escape an anthropocentric gaze and also on watching itself in cinema. Featuring mares and horses: Triana, Víctor K, Bambi Sailor, San Special Solano, Buck Red Skin, Onkaia, Cool Boy, the donkey Agostino, the mule Guapa. And also Alfredo Lagos, Raül Refree, María Marín, Pepe Habichuela, Virgina García del Pino, María García Ruiz, Pilar Monsell, María Pérez Sanz.

Charlotte Salomon: Life and the Maiden

In 1940, the German artist Charlotte Salomon (1917-43) undertook an extraordinary artistic adventure, during which she combined painting, text and music: in only eighteen months, she painted more than a thousand paintings. In 1943, she was arrested by the Nazis and sent to the Auschwitz extermination camp.

Terwijl het liefde was

Artistic director of the National Theater Eric de Vroedt writes and directs a performance about his own mother Winnie, who passed away in 2020. This piece, titled The Century of My Mother, is a family story about the migration from the Dutch East Indies to the Netherlands. It is De Vroedt's way of examining the relationship with his mother and not having to say goodbye to her yet: 'I can let her live on stage, but when the curtain falls, when the play is completely finished, then she is really dead'.

Live from art or die trying

This documentary explores the perspectives of three Venezuelan artists from three different generations on what it means to be an artist in Venezuela.

Black Is the Color: African-American Artists and Segregation

Black Is the Color highlights key moments in the history of Black visual art, from Edmonds Lewis’s 1867 sculpture Forever Free, to the work of contemporary artists such as Whitfield Lovell, Kerry James Marshall, Ellen Gallagher, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Art historians and gallery owners place the works in context, setting them against the larger social contexts of Jim Crow, WWI, the civil rights movement and the racism of the Reagan era, while contemporary artists discuss individual works by their forerunners and their ongoing influence.

Tadao Ando

Tadao Ando, a self-taught architect, proposes an international architecture that he believes can only be conceived by someone Japanese. His architecture mixes Piranesian drama with contemplative spaces in urban complexes, residences and chapels. This film presents the formative years of his impressive career before he embarked on projects in Europe and the United States.

Banksy and the Rise of Outlaw Art

Banksy is the world's most infamous street artist, whose political art, criminal stunts and daring invasions have outraged the establishment for over two decades. Featuring rare interviews with Banksy, this is the story of how an outlaw artist led a revolutionary new movement and built a multi-million dollar empire, while his identity remained shrouded in mystery.

Strokes of Genius: de Kooning on de Kooning

This award-winning 1982 documentary includes in-depth interviews with Willem and Elaine de Kooning as well as archival footage of Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Harold Rosenberg in conversation.

Folon

One of the 20th century Belgian artists who was the most idolized, exhibited, published, sold... Yet the artist himself, Jean-Michel Folon (1934-2005), whose work became controversial because deemed insipid, with its mannerisms, pastel tones and colors, remains little-known. Through previously unseen archive footage, Gaëtan de Saint-Rémy offers him a voice.

Les Couturiers de l'Église

Hidden Sex: Art and Shame

The representation of genitalia in the fine arts was censored for centuries: sexual organs were discreetly hidden among fig leaves, pearls or sheets; and it is still a taboo today. From Antiquity to the present day, the history of puritanism applied to art and the tricks used by artists to circumvent censorship.

The Written Face

In Japanese theater, women's roles are traditionally played by men. The man playing the woman's role, the Onnagata, does not imitate the woman, as in the West, but tries to capture her significance. He need not stick close to his model, but draws far more from his own identity - a shift of value takes place, which is nonetheless not a step beyond. THE WRITTEN FACE is an attempt to offer an insight into the Japanese Kabuki star Tamasaburo Bando, one of the last defenders of this ancient and disappearing performing tradition.

McCurry: The Pursuit of Colour

If something of import has taken place in our lifetimes, chances are that Steve McCurry has photographed it, from the wars in the Arab world to the 9/11 attacks. Denis Delestrac’s documentary on the photographer charts McCurry’s journey through a restless life spent on constant move, chronicling our times and living with the intense loneliness and trauma that came along with his work. Today, surrounded by a loving family, McCurry is finally home but never not in the pursuit of color.

M. C. Escher: Journey to Infinity

A portrait of the visionary Dutch artist M. C. Escher (1898-1972), according to his own words, taken from his diary, his correspondence and the texts of his lectures.

New York - Weltstadt der Kunst

Visions of Light

Cameramen and women discuss the craft and art of cinematography and of the "DP" (the director of photography), illustrating their points with clips from 100 films, from Birth of a Nation to Do the Right Thing. Themes: the DP tells people where to look; changes in movies (the arrival of sound, color, and wide screens) required creative responses from DPs; and, these artisans constantly invent new equipment and try new things, with wonderful results. The narration takes us through the identifiable studio styles of the 30s, the emergence of noir, the New York look, and the impact of Europeans. Citizen Kane, The Conformist, and Gordon Willis get special attention.

Greenfingers

Following fateful scientific reports, protestors pose the argument for a better future against the vested interest of industry. Small to large, individual to collective, where do I fit into this?

Leonora Carrington: The Lost Surrealist

British surrealist Leonora Carrington was a key part of the surrealist movement during its heyday in Paris and yet, until recently, remained a virtual unknown in the country of her birth. This film explores her dramatic evolution from British debutante to artist in exile, living out her days in Mexico City, and takes us on a journey into her darkly strange and cinematic world.

Les Mains magnétiques, Ernest Pignon-Ernest

Ernest Pignon Ernest is a French visual artist who is considered one of the pioneers of urban art in France. This film recounts the major stages of a considerable body of work that began in the 1960s on the Albion plateau and culminated in Les Extases at the Abbey Church of Bernay. The film gives him space to speak freely, generously, and with conviction. Ernest Pignon Ernest's hands are ancient, reaching back from Caravaggio to Titian, from Masaccio to El Greco. His works speak to us. They transform our streets into fictional spaces, reminiscences, rituals.