Art From Art

Experimental research and dissemination documentary about current contemporary art that compiles the opinions, experiences and anecdotes of artists, gallery owners, curators, museum directors and experts.

The Mona Lisa Myth

Philippe-Alain Michaud, le réel traversé par la fiction

To be in Venice and see the architecture of New York, to perceive in a painting by Tintoretto the birth of animated images, to look at the burlesque Cretinetti as the ancestor of montage - so many shifts, displacements, and striking telescopings that Philippe-Alain Michaud proposes in this film dedicated to him. To follow this art historian, curator of the cinema collections at the Centre Pompidou, is to go from the oriental carpet to the film, or from the first fireworks to the cinema. And everywhere the animation of the images - projections of Antony McCall, or of Paul Sharits, Column without end of Brancusi, Pasolini's Accatone - everything moves! Under the tutelage of Aby Warburg, the great art historian of the early twentieth century, precursor of iconology and image comparison, to whom Philippe-Alain Michaud was the first in France to devote an important essay, eleven images are placed on the table to describe the singular journey of this art historian.

Bomb It

Through interviews and guerilla footage of graffiti writers in action on five continents, the documentary tells the story of graffiti from its origins in prehistoric cave paintings thru its notorious explosion in New York City during the 70’s and 80’s, then follows the flames as they paint the globe.

The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism

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.

Joseph Cornell: Worlds in a Box

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.

Art City 1 Making It in Manhattan

Unlike any art movie you've ever seen, Making it in Manhattan is informed 'entertainment' about the people who make contemporary art. Artists, collectors, and dealers bring to life the art capital of the world, New York, as it plunges into the 21st Century. Presenting a cross-section of artists, the film discusses inspiration, aesthetics, and the meaning of success. With Louise Bourgeois, Brice Marden, Chuck Close, Neil Jenney, Elizabeth Murray, Ashley Bickerton, Gary Simmons, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Rirkrit Tiravanija, St. Clair Cemin, Ivan Karp, Jay Gorney, Matthew Marks, Jerry Saltz, Herb & Dorothy Vogel, and others. From abstraction to figuration, from installation to conceptual art, from the privacy of the doctor's office to the posh gallery opening, Making it in Manhattan captures the reality of a special world. Music by Tom Waits, Don Braden Ryuichi Sakamoto, George van Eps, Piero Umiliani with Chet Baker.

Islamic Art: Mirror of the Invisible World

This ninety-minute film takes audiences on an epic journey across nine countries and over 1,400 years of history. It explores themes such as the Word, Space, Ornament, Color and Water and presents the stories behind many great masterworks of Islamic Art and Architecture. Narrated by Academy Award winning performer Susan Sarandon, this dazzling documentary reveals the variety and diversity of Islamic art. It provides a window into Islamic culture and brings broad insights to the enduring themes that have propelled human history and fueled the rise of world civilization over the centuries

Faces Places

Director Agnès Varda and photographer/muralist JR journey through rural France and form an unlikely friendship.

Kandinsky

Colour, form, area - this is the formula of the greatest pioneer of abstract painting. Kandinsky came to art late in life, but his impact through Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) and Bauhaus paved the way for modern art. In 1913, he created one of the first abstract pictures, the theoretical basis of which was inspired by his essay Uber das Geistige in der Kunst (On the Spiritual in Art). Accompanied by Mussorgsky's Pictures From An Exhibition Labarthe goes on a sensual journey which makes the soul resound with colours and forms. "A picture has to resound and must be bathed in an inner glow." Kandinsky

Laerte-se

In this film, Laerte conjugates the body in the feminine, and scrutinizes concepts and prejudices. Not in search of an identity, but in search of un-identities. Laerte creates and sends creatures to face reality in the fictional world of comic strips as a vanguard of the self. And, on the streets, the one who becomes the fiction of a real character. Laerte, of all the bodies, and of none, complicates all binaries. In following Laerte, this documentary chooses to clothe the nudity beyond the skin we inhabit.

Pyhä

The Story Won't Die

THE STORY WON’T DIE, from Award-winning filmmaker David Henry Gerson, is an inspiring, timely look at a young generation of Syrian artists who use their work to protest and process what is currently the world’s largest and longest ongoing displacement of people since WWII. The film is produced by Sundance Award-winner Odessa Rae (Navalny). Rapper Abu Hajar, together with other creative personalities of the Syrian uprising, a post-Rock musician (Anas Maghrebi), members of the first all-female Syrian rock band (Bahila Hijazi + Lynn Mayya), break-dancer (Bboy Shadow), choreographer (Medhat Aldaabal), and visual artists (Tammam Azzam, Omar Imam + Diala Brisly), use their art to rise in revolution and endure in exile in this new documentary reflecting on a battle for peace, justice and freedom of expression. It is an uplifting and humanizing look at what it means to be a refugee in today’s world and offers inspiring and hopeful vantages on a creative response to the chaos of war.

Town Destroyer

Controversy erupts over a New-Deal-era mural of the namesake of San Francisco’s George Washington High School. The thirteen-panel artwork "The Life of Washington" by Victor Arnautoff offers a view of the Founding Father both celebratory and critical, referencing his involvements in slavery and Native American genocide.

Liu Xiaodong: Hometown Boy

One of the best-known Chinese figurative painters, Liu Xiaodong goes back to his hometown of Jincheng, in the province of Liaoning (North-East China), to re-paint again friends and relatives after several years have gone by. With a soundtrack by famed composer Lim Giong (Millennium Mambo, The Assassin).

Ashes and Snow

Ashes and Snow, a film by Gregory Colbert, uses both still and movie cameras to explore extraordinary interactions between humans and animals. The 60-minute feature is a poetic narrative rather than a documentary. It aims to lift the natural and artificial barriers between humans and other species, dissolving the distance that exists between them.

Pictura

Pictura is a documentary film directed by seven famous directors, and narrated by several famous Hollywood actors. The film attempts to give the general filmgoing public a taste of art history and art appreciation.

I Will Dance

Follows the young people of Selma, Alabama's RATCo (Random Acts of Theatre Company) as they journey to New York City to share their story of hope, resilience, and overcoming.

The Diamond King

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.

Botticelli, Florence and the Medici

Documentary on the art and culture of Florence in 15th century Tuscany and, in particular, the work of Eary Ranaissance painter Sandro Botticelli (1445-1501).

(re)kindle

Ana and Helen, two divorced women, were close friends as teenagers. Today, amidst the corona virus pandemic and in quarantine, they get in touch after 20 years via internet. Through video conference calls, memories, sensations and emotions reflourishes.

Kikoriki. Legend of the Golden Dragon

The lovably simple residents of peaceful Kikoriki Island are thrown kicking and screaming into big adventure, when their resident scientist invents an amazing device - a helmet called "the Improverizor," which takes personality traits from one person and swaps them with traits of someone else. But when spineless young Wally tries to use the untested device to cure his cowardice, he ends up even more spineless - by getting accidentally body-switched with a squirmy little caterpillar. Now he has even more to fear than he could have ever imagined, and so do his fellow villagers, as they're dragged into a madcap adventure packed with plane crashes, mistaken identities, erupting volcanoes and angry primitives on the warpath. Boy, do the Kikoriki Crew wish they could switch place now - with anyone.

The Party 2

A young French teenage girl after moving to a new city falls in love with a boy and is thinking of having sex with him because her girlfriends have already done it.

Moon Young

Mute Moon-young records people's faces with her small camcorder on the subway. One day, she avoids her drunk father at home and films Hee-soo who is crying over saying goodbye to her boyfriend and gets caught. The two feel some sort of kinship and become closer.

Testament of Orpheus

An 18th century poet travels through time in search of divine wisdom. In a mysterious wasteland, he has a series of enigmatic encounters with symbolic phantoms with whom he muses about the nature of art and his own career. Ultimately, the poet strives to achieve his rebirth as a celestial being.

Kill Bill Parody

A woman and her child are kidnapped by her lover and plans revenge on him.

People

PEOPLE is a new collaboration of riders and filmers from Mack Dawg Productions. Directed by Pierre Minhondo and Justin Eeles. This newly formed collective combines the talents, attitude, and fun-loving folks from such films as kidsKNOW’s “Burning Bridges,” and Neoproto’s “Some Kinda Life”. Learn, watch, and follow these PEOPLE as they show you real snowboarding in their own form. From our cities to yours, look forward to watching: Jon Kooley, Justin Hebbel, Nima Jalali, Jordan Mendenhall, Curtis Woodman, Mitch Nelson, Bryan Fox, Etienne Gilbert, Robbie Sell, Stephen Duke, Pat McCarthy, Shaun McKay, Josh Mills, Marius Otterstad, Jussi Tarvainen, and Ryan Thompson. -Released August 2006.

Welcome in Vienna

Freddy, a Viennese Jew who emigrated to New York after Hitler's invasion, and Adler, a left-wing intellectual originally from Berlin, return to Austria in 1944 as soldiers in the U.S. Army. Freddy falls in love with the daughter of a Nazi, and Adler attempts to go over to the Communist Zone. But with the advent of the Cold War and continuing anti-semitism, the idealism of both characters is shattered as they find themselves surrounded by cynicism, opportunism, and universal self-deception.

Afgan

A large number of drugs enter Kazakhstan from Afghanistan. To stop this, a special group must be created. The Ministry decides to send intelligence officer Oraz and two of his friends there, who participated in the war in Afghanistan and know the country well. The three veterans are joined by a young scout who despises the "old men". They will have to solve the drug problem, despite the conflict between two generations.

10 Days of a Bad Man

Battered, broken and bereaved, a private investigator must muscle his way through a tangle of lies to uncover the truth behind a mansion murder.

People's Avengers

About the partisan movement during the Great Patriotic War.

Anaconda 3: Offspring

A mercenary-for-hire accepts a mission from a billionaire to capture a dangerous snake that could possibly help cure a terminal illness.

Piccadilly Zero Hour 12

Mike Hilton served eight years in prison for being innocent. When he is released from prison early, he wants revenge on the men who were responsible. But the ex-commissioner in charge at the time, Jack Bellamy, has given in to drunkenness. And Mike's lawyer Cunningham continues to make crooked deals. He holds the key to solving the case. When Bellamy picks himself up again, he and Hilton are able to bring Cunningham and the gangster Whity to justice.

Johnny Guitar

On the outskirts of town, the hard-nosed Vienna owns a saloon frequented by the undesirables of the region, including Dancin' Kid and his gang. Another patron of Vienna's establishment is Johnny Guitar, a former gunslinger and her lover. When a heist is pulled in town that results in a man's death, Emma Small, Vienna's rival, rallies the townsfolk to take revenge on Vienna's saloon – even without proof of her wrongdoing.

King Tweety

Everyone's favorite yellow canary unexpectedly becomes next in line for the crown when the queen of an island paradise disappears. His Little Highness’ entourage includes motorbike daredevil Granny and sly Sylvester, whose allegiance is tested when he uncovers a sinister plot to eliminate Tweety for good.

Re-Elected

Friends battle former U.S. presidents when they come back from the dead as zombies on the Fourth of July.

1

Set in the golden era of Grand Prix Racing '1' tells the story of a generation of charismatic drivers who raced on the edge, risking their lives during Formula 1's deadliest period, and the men who stood up and changed the sport forever.

Jennifer Lopez: Let's Get Loud

"Let's Get Loud" was Jennifer Lopez's NBC Special, which premiered on November 20, 2002 and was recorded over 2 nights in Puerto Rico in the fall of 2001. It was Jennifer's first-ever headlining concert appearance, showing off her talents as a vocalist and dancer. The performance features a variety of Spanish and English songs, including: "Love Don't Cost A Thing", "If You Had My Love", "I'm Real", "Plenarriqueña", and many more.