If Stone Could Speak(2008)

Cecil Taylor: All The Notes(en)

Cecil Taylor was the grand master of free jazz piano. "All the Notes" captures in breezy fashion the unconventional stance of this media-shy modern musical genius, regarded as one of the true giants of post-war music. Seated at his beloved and battered piano in his Brooklyn brownstone the maestro holds court with frequent stentorian pronouncements on life, art and music.

Too Many Captain Cooks(xx)

For both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians, Captain James Cook is a figure of great historical significance.

Soup Cans and Superstars: How Pop Art Changed the World(en)

Alastair Sooke champions pop art as one of the most important art forms of the twentieth century, peeling back pop's frothy, ironic surface to reveal an art style full of subversive wit and radical ideas. In charting its story, Alastair brings a fresh eye to the work of pop art superstars Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and tracks down pop's pioneers, from American artists like James Rosenquist, Claes Oldenburg and Ed Ruscha to British godfathers Peter Blake and Allen Jones. Alastair also explores how pop's fascination with celebrity, advertising and the mass media was part of a global art movement, and he travels to China to discover how a new generation of artists are reinventing pop art's satirical, political edge for the 21st century.

Gauguin: A Dangerous Life(en)

Gauguin’s vivid artworks sell for millions. He was an inspired and committed multi-media artist who worked with the Impressionists and had a tempestuous relationship with Vincent van Gogh. But he was also a competitive and rapacious man who left his wife to bring up five children and used his colonial privilege to travel to Polynesia, where in his 40s he took ‘wives’ between 13 and 15 years old, creating images of them and their world that promoted a fantasy paradise of an unspoilt Eden in the Pacific. Later, he challenged the colonial authorities and the Catholic Church in defence of the indigenous people, dying in the Marquesas Islands in 1903, sick, impoverished and alone.

Pictures at an Exhibition(de)

What does modern art mean for ordinary visitors to an exhibition?

The Painter and the Thief(no)

When two of artist Barbora Kysilkova’s most valuable paintings are stolen from a gallery at Frogner in Oslo, the police are able to find the thief after a few days, but the paintings are nowhere to be found. Barbora goes to the trial in hopes of finding clues, but instead she ends up asking the thief if she can paint a portrait of him. This will be the start of a very unusual friendship. Over three years, the cinematic documentary follows the incredible story of the artist looking for her stolen paintings, while at the same time turning the thief into art.

Magicians of the Earth: Kings of the Water(en)

Cyprien Tokoudagba is from the city of Abomey in the Benin Republic of West Africa, where he paints the religious houses of the vodun. Haas and his film crew follow Cyprien as he first paints and then takes part in the ceremony to open a new temple. The paintings include three vodun figures and several emblems, including a pipe and a duck. Cyprien explains his work in the context of the religion and takes the crew to film two other local ceremonies, one where the dead are believed to come back to instruct the living through wild dancing and, another, where women warriors perform their war dances.

White Walls Say Nothing(es)

Buenos Aires is a complex, chaotic city. It has European style and a Latin American heart. It has oscillated between dictatorship and democracy for over a century, and its citizens have faced brutal oppression and economic disaster. Throughout all this, successive generations of activists and artists have taken to the streets of this city to express themselves through art. This has given the walls a powerful and symbolic role: they have become the city’s voice. This tradition of expression in public space, of art and activism interweaving, has made the streets of Buenos Aires into a riot of colour and communication, giving the world a lesson in how to make resistance beautiful.

Closeness to the Land(en)

In 2020, just as the pandemic was beginning, Gazala purchased land in western Ohio, on which sits a disused school building. This site allowed her to explore her complex relationship with “the land.” As the daughter of displaced indigenous Palestinians, she attempts to form a proxy bond with the earth, on ground that was stolen from the displaced indigenous Shawnee people. Closeness to the Land is video footage of hand-painted text signs that translate the word الأرض (ard) into six English words, displayed performatively in multiple locations to capture the now-invisible nature of indigenous culture in Ohio. These signs were installed on the old schoolhouse in early 2021.

Mannen Henger(no)

Kokoschka: Work and Life(fr)

Painter, poet and playwright, teacher and freethinker, lover and traveler, Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) was a rare individual who remained lucid and passionate throughout his long life.

Spomíname na Edmunda Gwerka(sk)

Displaced Perssons(sv)

Per Persson left Sweden 40 years ago. In Pakistan he fell in love and became the father of two daughters. Trouble starts when the girls grow up and the family decides to emigrate to Sweden. When they end up living in a caravan outside Hässleholm, all their expectations are dashed.

La langue est donc une histoire d'amour(fr)

Latvian Coyote(lv)

An absurd game of “finding happiness” is being played by local Latvian coyotes* and illegal immigrants on the Russian and the European Union border. It is a game with no winner – all participants are driven to play by the sense of despair. While one side leaves home and undertakes a perilous journey to the other side of the globe, hoping to spend the rest of their lives in a free country, the other side risks their freedom to earn a chance to stay right where they are, in their homeland. *coyote – someone who smuggles illegal immigrants

Hinter dem Vorhang: Das Geheimnis Vermeer(de)

Die Blume der Hausfrau(de)

About a group of door-to-door salesman who try to sell vacuum cleaners from "Vorwerk", a German manufacturer.

Bamboo Theatre(cn)

This film is a portrait of unique cultural space for Spirits, Gods and People. While permanent theatres are commonly built in most cosmopolitan modern cities, Hong Kong preserves a unique theatrical architecture, a Chinese tradition that has lasted more than a century - Bamboo Theatre.

Ludvík Kuba(cs)

The Lure and the Lore(en)

A collaboration between filmmaker Ayoka Chenzira and performance artist Thomas Pinnock, who performs his "immigrant folktales" using traditional lore of his native Jamaica to dramatize his migration to New York in the 60's.