The first feature-length documentary on Mexican graffiti, street art and hip hop presents urban arts as a path of freedom and independence of an individual, who is confronting the global power of the capitalist system.
Artist
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Keith Haring: The Message was released in conjunction with the Keith Haring retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Directed by famed designer, Madonna stylist and Haring confidante Maripol, The Message goes pretty deep into both the artist and the city and times he’ll forever be identified with: New York City, circa the 1980s. The focus, as the title indicates, is upon the “struggles that animated” Keith Haring’s work, his activism – in a word, his “message.”
Tony Silver and Henry Chalfant's PBS documentary tracks the rise and fall of subway graffiti in New York in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
They are known as "shock activists", surprising again and again with radical-provocative, often illegal art actions. Up-close insights into the work of the artist collective and the Berlin graffiti scene.
Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post-hurricane New Orleans to the separation barrier on the Palestinian West Bank. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. Exit Through the Gift Shop tells the incredible true story of how an eccentric French shop keeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner.
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.
Short documentary about artist Keith Haring, detailing his involvement in the New York City graffiti subculture, his opening of the Pop Shop, and the social commentary present in his paintings and drawings.
Paris 1983: They are between 14 and 18 and write their names on the walls of the city. Inspired by the New York phenomenon, they do not simply reproduce the forms. They create their own style, their required letters and inspire an entire generation. They communicate through letters of their name. They are called Writers.
This documentary follows the lives and careers of a collective group of do-it-yourself artists and designers who inadvertently affected the art world.
This mini documentary features a rare interview with infamous graffiti artist Banksy, delving into how he started out as a graffiti writer up to his shift to gallery art, installations, CDs, and more. Til this day only a hand full of people know his real identity, such as friends appearing here: 3D of Massive Attack, Damien Hirst, and others.
Two writers in Lisbon talk about what it means to be a woman in graffiti world where the survival of the fittest is prevailed and it's difficult to be accepted.
"5 Sides of a Coin" is a comprehensive overview of the worldwide cultural movement of Hip-Hop.
From the streets of Bristol to the caverns of London and beyond, BanksyDoc finds the truths and explores the impact that the world’s most famous graffiti artist has had on the art world, on the expression of protest and satire, and on the perception of what you can do with a spray can and a stencil. Furthermore, this documentary explores the highly active art collector's world and how the celebrity factor shockingly influences value.