James Bearden: Man of Metals

The Living Stone

February 1958 •English

The Living Stone is a 1958 Canadian short documentary film directed by John Feeney about Inuit art. It shows the inspiration behind Inuit sculpture. The Inuit approach to the work is to release the image the artist sees imprisoned in the rough stone. The film centres on an old legend about the carving of the image of a sea spirit to bring food to a hungry camp. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Magnicidios Poe

January 2017 •Spanish

The sarcastic account of the assassination of five Spanish politicians between 1870 and 1973 is mixed with the narration of five short stories by Edgar Allan Poe illustrated by five skillful pencil artists. A documentary, a video essay, a collage, a provocative experiment where various pop culture figures and icons perform unexpected cameos. The macabre joke of a jester. Never more.

The Indispensable Practice of Vagueness

October 2014 •Portuguese

By the director: "Ar.Co embodies each person’s geography, it escapes normalisation. Each individual’s experience is his own. This film is my experience, our experience. Pieced together from the school’s archive, from recordings of classes by Manuel Castro Caldas and from conversations at home."

Moving Memories

Invalid date •Portuguese

On April 1st, 2022, my grandfather passed away and i felt lost. I think my path changed when, some days after he passed away, i was offered a small VHS camera. "Moving Memories" is a visual journey that makes the viewer reflect on our momentary presence on earth and questions the nature of memory. Throughout this journey, we get to the conclusion that memories are more than just static photographs in our minds, they're alive and in constant movement, changing while we evolve as individuals. These memories have influence and help us to move on.

A Film Inspired by Real Events

December 2019 •Turkish

Through the footage from his family's Handycam, the director creates a portrait of his family that is falling apart.

Rolanda Polonsky, Sculptor

January 1971 •English

Enter the imaginative world of acclaimed sculptor Rolanda Polonsky, who had been a resident of Netherne Psychiatric Hospital in Coulsdon, Surrey for 26 years when this film was made. One of the positive aspects of her illness, described in the film as a schizophrenia, is that it "tapped a deep source of mystical vision and human feeling" which finds expression in her work.

Mysteries of the Driftless

September 2013 •English

What strange forces saved one isolated section along the Upper Mississippi River from the repeated crushing and scouring effects of glaciers during the last two million years? And what pre-Ice Age throwbacks survived here in this unique geologic refuge that holds more Native American effigy mounds, petroglyph caves, strange geological features, and rare species than anywhere in the Midwest? These questions and more are answered in this captivating new documentary. A team of scientists embarks on a journey of exploration to expose both the science and threats behind three unique features of the zone - rare plants and animals, odd geological phenomenon, and striking remnants of a Native American pilgrimage like no other.

Ozu: Passageways

December 2012 •English

People constantly appear walking through passageways in the films of Japanese filmmaker Yasujirō Ozu (1903-63). His art resides in the in-between spaces of modern life, in the transitory: alleys are no longer dark and threatening traps where suspense is born, but simple places of passage.

Magritte or the Object Lesson

January 1960 •French

The surrealist painter René Magritte questions the objective reality and emphasizes the arbitrariness of the relationship between an object, its image and its name: the evocation of mystery consists of images of familiar things gathered or transformed in such a way that they no longer conform to our ideas, whether naive or wise.

La Victoire de Samothrace, une icône dévoilée

January 2014 •French

A documentary about the statue Winged Victory of Samothrace, unquestionably one of the most complete expressions of Hellenistic sculpture

Visions of Europe

May 2004 •English

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

Rodin: A Modernist

April 2017 •French

Beyond the mall

November 2010 •Spanish

Is there an audience for Latin American movies? These are some of the questions posed by an Ecuadorian filmmaker whose latest movie was a commercial flop. He embarks on a query to find answers to his questions and relief for his despair. His research leads him to a giant contraband market in the port city of Guayaquil, where pirated movies from all over the world are sold for one dollar each. Here, he discovers a number of Ecuadorian low budget movies produced by amateurs, with titles he had never heard of before: from action packed productions to evangelical melodramas.

Las Preguntas que Perdimos

December 2023 •Spanish

The Making of Transformers the Premake

May 2020 •English

The mind process behind the film, Transformers the Premake, explained by Kevin B Lee himself.

Aretha Franklin, soul sister

September 2020 •French

A vibrant portrait of Aretha Franklin, the queen of soul, who has become a symbol of freedom and power for all African American women.

Biafra

May 2015 •English

An unnamed graffiti artist produces a new piece in the biting cold of Minneapolis. Despite the illegality of his medium and the harshness of his environment, the film captures why the artist chooses to create on his own terms.

#movieofmylife

July 2017 •English

Premiered at the 2017 Locarno International Film Festival.

What I Learned at the Harun Farocki Residency

June 2017 •English

In this video I share my experience as the first Resident of the Harun Farocki Institut in Berlin during the winter of 2016-2017. Produced for the Goethe Institute.

A Time for Making

October 2018 •English

Nine artisans on secluded Gabriola Island reveal the differences between mass manufactured and authentic locally handmade through intimate portraits of their work and lifestyle.