Tales of the American

Seemayer Studios presents a new documentary about the American Hotel in downtown Los Angeles and the Arts District that surrounds it. Since 1979, the American Hotel has been the beating heart of a rich community of artists who began moving into the deserted factory buildings between Alameda and the Los Angeles River.

Alvaro Cunhal

A personal biography of the leader of the PCP (Portuguese Communist Party) seen through the eyes of those who were close to him and those who studied his trajectory and thought.

Speaking of Abstraction: A Universal Language

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, abstraction - that most quintessentially modernist innovation - maintains a peculiarly contradictory position. Used, on one hand, by post-modernist artists as just one more quotable style amongst many, it is on the other hand still considered an elitist or hermetic language by audiences intimidated by its lack of recognizable subject matter. Yet ultimately, abstraction continues to be a viable creative path for contemporary artists of all generations, many of whom embrace it as the most inclusive and fundamentally resonant of artistic languages. Filmed at the artists' studios, the Dia Center for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Museum during their exhibition, "Abstraction in the Twentieth Century."

Your War (I'm One of You): 20 Years of Joan of Arc

Your War (I'm One Of You) chronicles the life and career of Chicago's Tim Kinsella, frontman of ever-shifting band Joan of Arc and '90's pioneers Cap'n Jazz. With appearances from Tim's friends, family, and admirers, we learn what has made his legacy so unique and enduring for more than 20 years.

The Art of Incarceration

Narrated by Uncle Jack Charles and seen through the eyes of Indigenous prisoners at Victoria’s Fulham Correctional Centre, this documentary explores how art and culture can empower Australia's First Nations people to transcend their unjust cycles of imprisonment.

Francis Bacon: A Brush with Violence

In this unique, compelling film, those who knew him speak freely, some for the first time, to reveal the many mysteries of Francis Bacon.

Fall 2

Bas Jan Ader rides his bike into a canal in Amsterdam.

Christo: Wrapped Walk Ways

Wrapped Walk Ways, in Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri, consisted of the installation of 136,268 square feet (12,540 square meters) of saffron-colored nylon fabric covering 2.7 miles (4.4 kilometers) of formal garden walkways and jogging paths.

Thomas Hart Benton

Thomas Hart Benton's paintings were energetic and uncompromising. Today his works are in museums, but Benton hung them in saloons for ordinary people to appreciate.

The Mona Lisa Myth

Cern and the Sense of Beauty

An exploration of the link between science and beauty through the work of scientists at CERN, in Geneva.

Gauguin: A Dangerous Life

Gauguin’s vivid artworks sell for millions. He was an inspired and committed multi-media artist who worked with the Impressionists and had a tempestuous relationship with Vincent van Gogh. But he was also a competitive and rapacious man who left his wife to bring up five children and used his colonial privilege to travel to Polynesia, where in his 40s he took ‘wives’ between 13 and 15 years old, creating images of them and their world that promoted a fantasy paradise of an unspoilt Eden in the Pacific. Later, he challenged the colonial authorities and the Catholic Church in defence of the indigenous people, dying in the Marquesas Islands in 1903, sick, impoverished and alone.

We Exist Triply

A sock puppet explores a family history told from the perspective of a mother and father.

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.

Klimt & The Kiss

The Kiss by Gustav Klimt is one of the most recognised and reproduced paintings in the world. It is perhaps the most popular poster on student dorm walls from Beijing to Boston. Painted in Vienna around 1908, the evocative image of an unknown embracing couple has captivated viewers with its mystery, sensuality and dazzling materials ever since it was created. But just what lies behind the appeal of the painting – and just who was the artist that created it? Delving into the details of real gold, decorative designs, symbolism and simmering erotica, a close study of the painting takes us to the remarkable turn of the century Vienna when a new world was battling with the old.

The Price of Everything

Featuring collectors, dealers, auctioneers and a rich range of artists, including market darlings George Condo, Jeff Koons, Gerhard Richter and Njideka Akunyili Crosby, this documentary examines the role of art and artistic passion in today’s money-driven, consumer-based society.

I, Claude Monet

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.

Post New Bills: The Story of Green Patriot Posters

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).

Altamira: el origen del arte

A documentary to 'rediscover' the so called Sistine Chapel of Rock Art and to tell the story of the discovery of a cave and some paintings that astonished the world 138 years ago. Filming this documentary lead its director, José Luis López Linares, through many rock caves around the world, grasping information about the life of the Magdalenian man -who lived twenty thousand years ago- and about an art form, the paintings, that make Altamira "the Prado museum of prehistory".

National Gallery

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.