Where the Universe Sings: The Spiritual Journey of Lawren Harris

Inventata da un dio distratto

December 2001 •Italian

This film is dedicated to Maria Lai, an artist born in 1919 in Ulassai, Sardinia. Surrounded and inspired by the ogliastra countryside, the cyclopic guardian of plots and landslides, Maria Lai uses inert materials like stone, concrete, asphalt, metal and wood to work old and new legends into librettos of individual works, installations and interventions, thus becoming part of the landscape that calls to her. In making this film the authors have confided in the artist’s role as a spokeperson, and it is as if one is listening to the voice of a wild olive tree - both millenary and contemporary - a voice that knows what to say (and can say whatever it wants) from beyond the boundaries of reality, history, nature and art. As that tree, the artist - confident of her roots - with a sound sense of rhythm and scansion, multiplies big and small stories, just as she did with the bread and fish in Santa Barbara di Ulassai along the way to the country church.

Jack Kirby: Story Teller

June 2007 •English

A documentary on the life of Jack Kirby, co-creator of Captain America, The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, The Avengers, The Hulk, The X-Men and the New Gods, among other classic comic book superheroes.

Portrait of Imogen

January 1988 •English

Photographer Imogen Cunningham presents her own work in this Academy Award-nominated documentary.

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.

Lucian Freud: Portraits

June 2004 •English

Filmmaker Jake Auerbach decides to offer a description of his friend Lucian Freud that's more truthful than the common media image by asking a number of people who have sat for Freud's portraits to share their experiences with the camera. They include several of Freud's friends and daughters, and the film becomes a depiction not only of his art, but also his private persona. Lucian Freud does not appear, with the exception of a brief shot at the end of the film.

Andrew Weyth, The Helga Pictures

September 1987 •English

Charlton Heston tells the fascinating story of the intertwining of Andrew Wyeth's biography and art. He discusses themes of regeneration and fertility. An overview of Wyeth's place in contemporary art.

Counter Shot: Departure of the Filmmakers

February 2008 •German

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.

Eskimo Artist: Kenojuak

January 1964 •English

This documentary shows how an Inuit artist's drawings are transferred to stone, printed and sold. Kenojuak Ashevak became the first woman involved with the printmaking co-operative in Cape Dorset. This film was nominated for the 1963 Documentary Short Subject Oscar.

Alice Pasquini - Figlia del mondo

December 2019 •Italian

The documentary, made by the students of RUFA documentary course, followed Alice Pasquini for many months, resuming her pictorial interventions, interviewing friends and family, collecting archival material and participating in meetings for the realization of the book. The flow of images is a sort of specific itinerary that Alice Pasquini takes when she decides to give form and substance to what her mind imagines.

The Great Contemporary Art Bubble

October 2009 •English

On September 15th 2008, the day of the the collapse of Lehmans, the worst financial news since 1929, Damien Hirst sold over £60 million of his art, in an auction at Sotheby’s that would total £111 million over two days. It was the peak of the contemporary art bubble, the greatest rise in the financial value of art in the history of the world. One art critic and film-maker was banned by Sotheby’s and Hirst from attending this historic auction: Ben Lewis.

The Michelangelo Code: Lost Secrets of the Sistine Chapel

January 2008 •English

Art critic Waldemar Januszczak is on the quest to explain exactly what the Sistine Chapel's ceiling is actually trying to tell us.

MMXIII

February 2013 •English

An experimental self-portrait, MMXIII explores phenomenological subtlety, intersections of construct and verité, and the ways in which technology, landscape, and beauty coalesce.

Pablo Picasso: The Legacy of a Genius

January 1981 •English

An assessment of the 20th century's best known artist and his vast achievements through the insights and speculations of over a dozen participants. Filmed on the 100th anniversary of Picasso's birth at MoMA, Musée Picasso, Walker Art Center, Museu Picasso Barcelona. Featuring Henry Moore, Anthony Caro, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rosenblum, Clement Greenberg, Roland Penrose and others.

Waiting for Hockney

January 2008 •English

A young working class Baltimore man spends 10 years on a single portrait, believing it is his means to fame and fortune. But he also believes that only one man can lead him there---the famous artist David Hockney. What happens when you finally meet the god of your own making?

Autography

December 2004 •Portuguese

A documentary that portrays not only the poet and painter Mario Cesariny but as well his life, his journey and his individuality.

Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn

May 1977 •English

In this sequel to Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway, Alexander's story is told in both the past and the present. Alexander's parents send him away from home for being too sensitive and not helping enough on their farm. He goes to Los Angeles in hopes of going to art school, but when he can't find a job as a minor, he turns to prostitution. After being arrested, he wants to head to Arizona to marry Dawn, but he falls into a lucrative job/relationship with a gay football star.

Fragonard: Lessons in Love

October 2015 •French

Takeda

October 2017 •Spanish

Takeda is a film about the universality of the human being seen thru the eyes of a Japanese painter that has adopted the Mexican culture.

Die Markus Family

March 2001 •German

This film tells the story of Markus Anatol Weisse, who, astonishingly enough, became an artist, in spite of being only very partially sighted. Markus also builds strange machine-like beings and wishes that he himself were a biological robot, or cyborg.