You Could Have Seen The Mona Lisa

1/57: Experiment with Synthetic Sound (Test)(de)

Mostly dark, rejecting images which are repeated. A stone wall, the chamber of a revolver which is, at first not recognizable, a close-up of a cactus. The duration of the takes emphasises the photographic character of the pictures, simultaneously with a crackling, brutal sound. (Hans Scheugl)

40 Days to Learn Film(en)

For just forty days, filmmaker and writer Mark Cousins embarks on a peculiar journey in order to explore topics as the passion for cinema and certain aspects related to making films as style, ideas, emotions and practicalities; an ambitious exploration of the universal language of cinema by analyzing pieces of work that cross every artistic and cultural boundaries.

Beatrice Wood: Mama of Dada(en)

Up until the end of her life, Beatrice Wood continued to influence younger artists with her definitive, free-wheeling ways. She was central to the American Dada movement and was the last surviving member of this group. In this program she recalls her friends Man Ray, Picabia and others, and her ex-husband Marcel Duchamp. She died in 1999 at 105 years of age.

Quentin Blake – The Drawing of My Life(en)

The illustrator and author paints scenes from a 70-year-long career, including his work with Roald Dahl. With David Walliams, Joanna Lumley, Peter Capaldi, Ore Oduba and Michael Rosen.

Our Forgotten Creativity!(fr)

This independant documentary linking poetry, artistic testimonies and performances offers a positive, innovating outlook on our creativity. It exposes the obstacles that may hinder it as well as the powerful assets creativity provides throughout our lives and in many different fields. Catherine Vidal, neurobiologist and director of the Pastor Institute, Albert Jacquard, geneticist and humanist, Jacques Salomé, social psychologist, Cédric Chapuis, director of performing Arts share their convictions regarding this topic essential to individual and collective development. The film offers a constructive vision inviting viewers to explore their own creativity and emphasizes the importance of placing it at the heart of children’s development through an education based on happiness.

Hockney at the Tate(en)

To mark his fiftieth birthday in 1988, London's Tate Gallery staged a major retrospective of his work. Melvyn Bragg joined David Hockney for an exclusive private view of the exhibition and they were filmed discussing pictures from all stages of Hockney's remarkable career.

From the West(de)

A film essay investigating the question of what “the West” means beyond the cardinal direction: a model of society inscribed itself in the Federal Republic of Germany’s postwar history and architecture. The narrator shifts among reflections on modern architecture and property relations, detailed scenes from childhood, and a passed-down memory of a “hemmed-in West Germany,” recalling the years of her parents’ membership in a 1970s communist splinter group.

A Tour of the Louvre(fr)

The tumultuous history of the Louvre Museum, founded in 1793, and its fabulous art collections, an immortal testimony to the destiny of France and all of Europe.

Taube Feuer(de)

With noise-canceling headphones, they communicate with an inaudible counterpart. Decoupled, they move around the room and meet their surroundings. Intimate stories and needs are discussed. The personal blends into a shared portrait.

The Indispensable Practice of Vagueness(pt)

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."

La vera natura di Caravaggio(en)

12-episode docuseries on the life and art of Italian baroque painter Caravaggio.

I, Apostate(en)

A fantasia of post-indoctrination, immigration, and iconography. A pageant of wanderers and searchers: Mormon missionaries, a pioneer, polygamists, scouts, hunters, church-goers, and an aspiring prophet walk and walk and walk. A pilgrimage of memory, history, ancestry, and place.

Magritte or the Object Lesson(fr)

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.

Ningwasum(ne)

Ningwasum follows two time travellers Miksam and Mingsoma, played by Subin Limbu and Shanta Nepali respectively, in the Himalayas weaving indigenous folk stories, culture, climate change and science fiction.

Your Day Is My Night(zh)

Immigrant residents of a “shift-bed” apartment in the heart of New York City’s Chinatown share their stories of personal and political upheaval. As the bed transforms into a stage, the film reveals the collective history of the Chinese in the United States through conversations, autobiographical monologues, and theatrical movement pieces. Shot in the kitchens, bedrooms, wedding halls, cafés, and mahjong parlors of Chinatown, this provocative hybrid documentary addresses issues of privacy, intimacy, and urban life.

John Singer Sargent: Fashion and Swagger(en)

Filmed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Tate Britain, London, the exhibition reveals Sargent’s power to express distinctive personalities, power dynamics and gender identities during this fascinating period of cultural reinvention. Alongside 50 paintings by Sargent sit stunning items of clothing and accessories worn by his subjects, drawing the audience into the artist’s studio. Sargent’s sitters were often wealthy, their clothes costly, but what happens when you turn yourself over to the hands of a great artist? The manufacture of public identity is as controversial and contested today as it was at the turn of the 20th century, but somehow Sargent’s work transcends the social noise and captures an alluring truth with each brush stroke.

Conz. The ultimate collector's life(it)

The story of one of the most controversial characters in art collecting whose name continues to provoke and divide. Francesco Conz tried to exceed the border between art and life. An entrepreneur from Veneto, in the mid-1970s he decided to give up everything he had to devote himself with great determination to his devouring passion for the artistic avant-gardes of the second half of the twentieth century, which would turn into a real obsession until the tragic ending.

KWAIDAN(pt)

Sulle tracce di Maria Lai(it)

The film reconstructs with care and tactile and optical sensuality the path and legacy of a unique figure of woman and artist: from the turn of the sixties with the "Looms", the "Sewn Canvas", the "Breads", the "Scriptures", the collective action carried out with the citizens of Ulassai in 1981 ("Tying to the mountain"), which anticipates relational art, one of the main artistic currents of the late twentieth century, by a decade. The repertoire materials and landscapes integrate the chorus of testimonies from friends, collaborators, artists, and critics with the same mysterious serenity of the artist's voice.

Bomb It(en)

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.