Cocottes et courtisanes dans l’œil des peintres(2015)

Achieving the Unachievable(en)

M.C. Escher is among the most intriguing of artists. In 1956 he challenged the laws of perspective with his graphic Print Gallery and his uncompleted master-piece quickly became the most puzzling enigma of modern art. Fifty years later, can mathematician Hendrik Lenstra complete it? Should he?

The Genius of Turner: Painting the Industrial Revolution(en)

A film that looks at the genius of JMW Turner in a new light. There is more to Turner than his sublime landscapes - he also painted machines, science, technology and industry. Turner's life spans the Industrial Revolution, he witnessed it as it unfolded and he painted it. In the process he created a whole new kind of art. The programme examines nine key Turner paintings and shows how we should re-think them in the light of the scientific and Industrial Revolution. Includes interviews with historian Simon Schama and artist Tracey Emin.

Max Ernst: Journey into the Subconscious(en)

The inner world of the great painter Max Ernst is the subject of this film. One of the principal founders of Surrealism, Max Ernst explores the nature of materials and the emotional significance of shapes to combine with his collages and netherworld canvases. The director and Ernst together use the film creatively as a medium to explain the artist's own development.

The Painting(es)

For three and a half centuries, from the same day that Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) applied his last brushstroke to the canvas, the enigma of “Las meninas, o La familia de Felipe IV” (1656) has not been deciphered. The secret story of a painting unveiled as if it was the resolution of a perfect crime.

The Prostitutes of Lyon Speak(fr)

Documentary about the Lyon sex workers who occupied the church of St. Nizier on June 3, 1975.

Mustang: The House That Joe Built(en)

A documentary about the girls of the Mustang Ranch, a legal brothel in Nevada.

The Lost Portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie: A Culture Show Special(en)

In 2009, art detective Dr Bendor Grosvenor caused a national scandal by proving that the Scottish National Portrait Gallery's iconic portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the rebel Stuart who almost seized power in 1745, was not in fact him. Keen to make amends, and suspecting that a long-lost portrait of the prince by one of Scotland's greatest artists, Allan Ramsay, might still survive, Bendor decides to retrace Charles's journey in the hope of unravelling one of the greatest mysteries in British art.

Peter Monaghan: A Portrait(en)

This documentary features a kinetic artist who creates vibrant mixed media works that push the boundary between 2D and 3D.

Palazzo Vecchio(it)

Palazzo Vecchio: a history of art and power. Directed by Piero Messina, through a clever movement of the narration between past and present, makes a real journey into the beauty of an ancient place that still retains its undisputed charm.

The Original Richard McMahan(en)

The multi-talented outsider artist Richard McMahan is on a quest to painstakingly re-create thousands of famous and not-so-famous paintings and artifacts–in miniature.

Cartoon College(en)

Every fall, The Center for Cartoon Studies invites 20 aspiring cartoonists to White River Junction, Vermont for a no-holds-barred education in comics. Those who complete the two-year program earn a Master of Fine Arts degree and are ready to face the hardship of a career in one of the world's most drudgery-inducing art forms. This is their story.

Hookers, Hustlers, Pimps and Their Johns(en)

British filmmaker Beeban Kidron ventures onto the mean streets of the South Bronx and other New York locales to examine the lives of those involved in the city's thriving sex industry.

Chicken Ranch(en)

Documentary on the "Chicken Ranch," a legal Nevada brothel.

Goya, tiempo y recuerdo de una época(es)

Everything's Better than a Hooker(fr)

The tragedy of Eva-Marree, deprived of her children for prostitution then killed by their father. In a convincing indictment, director Ovidie denounces the abuse of power by a supposedly protective Swedish state.

The Cinematograph: Birth of an Art(fr)

Throughout the 19th century, imaginative and visionary artists and inventors brought about the advent of a new look, absolutely modern and truly cinematographic, long before the revolutionary invention of the Lumière brothers and the arrival of December 28, 1895, the historic day on which the first cinema performance took place.

The Mystery of Mona Lisa(es)

The Mona Lisa, also known as La Gioconda, is a work by Leonardo Da Vinci and one of the most famous paintings in the world. It is currently on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris and is visited by millions of people every year. The Gioconda has not only gone down in art history for its artistic value, but also for the mystery surrounding its creation. Painted between 1503 and 1519, Da Vinci's last great work was revolutionary for the painting techniques used. After several analyses of the painting, it is known that the artist first made the drawing and then applied the oil paint. Da Vinci was the inventor of the 'sfumato' or blurring technique, which consists of blurring the outline of the drawing and softening the colors to create a play of shadows that gives the figure a three-dimensional effect.

Body Without Soul(cs)

A stark documentary about young male prostitutes in Prague, aged 15 to 18, who work the streets, train stations, and clubs. Through candid interviews and behind-the-scenes footage of gay porn shoots, the film explores their lives, struggles, and dreams, touching on themes of exploitation, identity, AIDS, and survival.

Chained Girls(en)

This exploitation classic purports to expose the secrets of the 1960s lesbian underworld.

Phantasia(xx)

X-ray images were invented in 1895, the same year in which the Lumière brothers presented their respective invention in what today is considered to be the first cinema screening. Thus, both cinema and radiography fall within the scopic regime inaugurated by modernity. The use of X-rays on two sculptures from the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum generates images that reveal certain elements of them that would otherwise be invisible to our eyes. These images, despite being generally created for technical or scientific purposes, seem to produce a certain form of 'photogénie': they lend the radiographed objects a new appearance that lies somewhere between the material and the ethereal, endowing them with a vaporous and spectral quality. It is not by chance that physics and phantasmagoria share the term 'spectrum' in their vocabulary.