Area 08 Vol. 2: The Journey Continues

Graffiti - Fun or Dumb?

January 1976 •English

Using kids' own arguments (both pros and cons), film presents overwhelming evidence that vandalism is dumb. Shows that graffiti-type vandalism costs over $20,000,000 a year.

America; I Too

March 2017 •English

Three arrested and detained undocumented immigrants must navigate the system to fight impending deportation.

Roadsworth: Crossing the Line

November 2008 •English

Roadsworth: Crossing the Line details a Montreal stencil artist's clandestine campaign to make his mark on the city streets. As he is prosecuted at home and celebrated abroad, Roadsworth struggles to defend his work, define himself as an artist and address difficult questions about art and freedom of expression. - Written by Loaded Pictures

Dream City

January 1986 •English

This film is a portrait of New York in the 1980s by famed photographer Steven Siegel, including footage of the subways, the parks, Times Square and other neighborhoods. The film is narrated by teenagers of that era.

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.

Gastrite

July 2019 •Portuguese

The Writing on the Wall

December 1986 •English

"In this half-hour documentary, Producer Sandra King provides an intimate portrait of a public phenomenon: Graffiti. Over an 18 month period, King and her crew followed the teenage members of a graffiti 'crew,' Vandals on the Street, as they painted and rapped and moved through the streets of downtown Newark. What emerges is a unique glimpse behind the 'tags' at the kind of inner city kids who write on walls, but who also make art; who create out of wedlock children, but who also form binding relationships; who drop out of school and never read a book, but who create their own brand of poetry through the medium of 'rap.'

Bomb It

April 2007 •English

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.

Working Class

September 2011 •English

Loosely based on Charles Dicken’s book “A Tale of Two Cities”, Working Class tells the tale of underground street artists Mike Giant and Mike Maxwell and their decade long friendship that started with a tattoo. The story is told through the cities they call home by, cutting back and forth between the neighborhoods of San Francisco and San Diego, as the artists talk about their life philosophies and the work they create.

Open Streets

February 2024 •English

A feature-length documentary about graffiti and street art with AXE, C215, CES53, CLOZE, DASIC, DOES, DRE/EARTH CRUSHER, GURS, HENDRIK ECB BEIKIRCH, LOGEK, NEVER, ONETON, SCAN, SEAZ, SEN2, SERAK, TECK.

Basquiat, Une Vie

October 2010 •English

From Brooklyn to the Bronx, Soho to Greenwich, Union Square to Wall Street... Join us and the friends, collaborators and gallery owners who supported Jean-Michel Basquiat throughout his life. The first ever recognized graffiti artist, who saw international success as a neo-expressionist painter in the 80s, Basquiat is a true contemporary hero who died at the peak of his career.

Criminal Minded: Live at the Crime Scene

December 2019 •German

Madrid 24/7

January 2010 •Spanish

Madrid 24/7 is 100% trains and 100% action. Wholesale Cars on both sides of the train, rolled whole cars, backjumps and obviously a lot of trouble with the long arm of the law. The film is set mainly in Madrid's subway but begins with an InterRail trip to Stockholm, Berlin, Prague, Hamburg, Munich and more!

Jisoe

January 2005 •English

A year in the life of troubled Australian graffiti artist Justin Hughes.

Grafite é do Morro

February 2023 •Portuguese

Amo, Poeta e Cantador

November 2021 •Portuguese

Class Acts

January 2023 •English

Class Acts is a feature-length documentary tracing the genesis of Singapore's creative scene in the '90s through intimate conversations with its pioneering personalities. These are the stories of individuals who started creating with nothing, who push Singapore’s creative standards even today. The ones who went on to inspire a new generation of musicians, designers, and street artists.

BCN Rise and Fall

May 2013 •Spanish

Art as a Weapon

June 2014 •English

Street art, creativity and revolution collide in this beautifully shot film about art’s ability to create change. The story opens on the politically charged Thailand/Burma border at the first school teaching street art as a form of non-violent struggle. The film follows two young girls (Romi & Yi-Yi) who have escaped 50 years of civil war in Burma to pursue an arts education in Thailand. Under the threat of imprisonment and torture, the girls use spray paint and stencils to create images in public spaces to let people know the truth behind Burma's transition toward "artificial democracy." Eighty-two hundred miles away, artist Shepard Fairey is painting a 30’ mural of a Burmese monk for the same reasons and in support of the students' struggle in Burma. As these stories are inter-cut, the film connects these seemingly unrelated characters around the concept of using art as a weapon for change.

Moments Like This Never Last

August 2021 •English

Dash Snow rejected a life of privilege to make his own way as an artist on the streets of downtown New York City in the late 1990s. Developing from a notorious graffiti tagger into an international art star, he documented his drug- and alcohol-fueled nights with the surrogate family he formed with friends and fellow artists Ryan McGinley and Dan Colen before his death by heroin overdose in 2009. Drawing from Snow’s unforgettable body of work and involving archival footage, Cheryl Dunn’s exceptional portrait captures his all-too-brief life of reckless excess and creativity.