Quest for Beauty: The Life and Art of William Schickel

Mi Vida Me Pasa

August 2024 •Spanish

Arturo Urbiola, independent singer/songwriter, talks about the influence music has had on his life, it's impact, and what's in store for his artistic career after becoming a father.

Kardinál Jozef Tomko

January 2013 •Slovak

Art City 3 A Ruling Passion

February 2002 •English

Many artists use the pain, exhilaration and resolution of private desires to express themselves. Art City: A Ruling Passion focuses on intense personalities who’ve used their art to explore the emotional impact of psychological truths. Everything that Louise Bourgeois creates - whether in marble, fabric or bronze - comes from memory. Michael Ray Charles investigates the marketing of black memorabilia, using early American advertising imagery. Elizabeth Peyton reinvents portraiture, using her friends as subjects, as well as pop culture royalty. Ed Ruscha’s literary landscapes burst from the physical world "right outside the window." The comic spirit of Lari Pittman contrasts with his graphic declarations. In a landmark house, Richmond Burton remembers his dreams to build "psychic fields" of abstraction. The arrays of featureless faces by David Deutsch are stimulated by sub-conscious sensations.

Aleš I.

December 1950 •Czech

The first part of the documentary about the work of the Czech painter Mikoláš Alš called "The Song of Life", which focuses on the part of his work that draws its themes from life in the village.

Pablo Picasso et Françoise Gilot : la femme qui dit non

June 2020 •French

Painter Françoise Gilot shared Pablo Picasso's life from 1943 to 1953. This union nourished their respective artistic creations.

The Rembrandt Association, an exceptional year

January 2024 •Dutch

Documentary about the Rembrandt Association. In the 19th century, a lot of Dutch art disappeared abroad, before the Rembrandt Association stood up in 1883 to put a stop to it. Today, 140 years later, the Association still helps determine what art lovers see in Dutch museums. In their crowning year, the Association faces a difficult choice: will they make the largest contribution in their history to the purchase of Rembrandt's De Vaandeldrager? The amount of 175 million needed for the painting is causing discussion. Is this money well spent?

Freeports: The Beauty Of Tax Free Storage

November 2021 •German

Documentary that exposes the secret world of these unknown tax havens. There is a global network of tax-free storage facilities valuable goods, catering to the super rich - and it's virtually unknown, until now. Freeports feature highest security levels, confidential record keeping and an offshore legal status and are a huge potential for tax savings. The film investigates their rise, who is using them, and why.

Merton: A Film Biography

January 1984 •English

In his lifetime, Thomas Merton was hailed as a prophet and censured for his outspoken social criticism. For nearly 27 years he was a monk of the austere Trappist order, where he became an eloquent spiritual writer and mystic as well as an anti-war advocate and witness to peace. Merton: A Film Biography provides the first comprehensive look at this remarkable 20th century religious philosopher who wrote, in addition to his immensely popular autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, over 60 books on some of the most pressing social issues of our time, some of which are excerpted here. Merton offers an engaging profile of a man whose presence in the world touched millions of people and whose words and thoughts continue to have a profound impact and relevance today.

The Genius of Gothic Art

May 2021 •German

Death and the devil, nudity and eroticism, horror in blazing colours, Gothic art cast a spell over people 500 years ago. In these image-poor times, art deliberately and skilfully played with the emotions of the viewer, triggering fear, devotion, but also rapture. Art documentary on German gothic art of the late-middle ages.

A Day on the Grand Canal with the Emperor of China or: Surface Is Illusion But So Is Depth

March 1988 •English

Director Philip Haas and artist David Hockney invite you to join them on a magical journey through China via a marvelous 72-foot long 17th-century Chinese scroll entitled The Kangxi Emperor's Southern Inspection Tour (1691-1698), scroll seven . As Hockney unrolls the beautiful and minutely detailed work of art, he traces the Emperor Kangxi’s second tour of his southern empire in 1689.

Magicians of the Earth: Kings of the Water

June 1991 •English

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.

Mysterium Gotik - Als die Kathedralen in den Himmel wuchsen

January 2021 •German

Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition

April 2023 •English

With loans from across the world, this major retrospective will bring together Vermeer’s most famous masterpieces including Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Geographer, The Milkmaid, The Little Street, Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid, and Woman Holding a Balance. This film invites audiences to a private view of the exhibition, accompanied by the director of the Rijksmuseum and the curator of the show.

The Real Beauty and the Beast

June 2013 •English

It's a condition known as "hypertrichosis" or "Ambras Syndrome," but in the 1500s it would transform one man into a national sensation and iconic fairy-tale character. His name: Petrus Gonsalvus, more commonly known today as the hairy hero of Beauty and the Beast.

Grayson Perry and the Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman

November 2011 •English

Artist Grayson Perry has been working behind the scenes at the British Museum to stage his most ambitious show yet: The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman. Given free rein to choose whatever he wants from the Museum's vast collections, Perry has also produced some 25 new works of art, from his trademark ceramics to a working motorbike. Imagine follows Perry for more than two years as he creates his own imaginary civilisation at the heart of the British Museum.

James Ensor: Demons Teasing Me

October 2010 •English

This film explains what James Ensor (1860-1949) meant for the development of art and makes palpable where he got his inspiration from.

Billy Connolly: Portrait of a Lifetime

June 2017 •English

Celebrating Billy Connolly's 75th birthday and 50 years in the business, three Scottish artists - John Byrne, Jack Vettriano and Rachel MacLean - each create a new portrait of the Big Yin. As he sits with each artist, Billy talks about his remarkable life and career which has taken him from musician and pioneering stand-up to Hollywood star and national treasure.

Freeze: But is it Art?

February 1994 •English

In 1988, art student Damien Hirst and a group of like-minded associates mounted an exhibition in a building in the East End of London. Entitled Freeze, it was a huge critical and commercial success, propelling Hirst and the group into the spotlight of the avant-garde. More than five years later, Hirst exhibits to international acclaim and is regularly derided in the tabloid press. This portrait of Hirst, which resumes the Omnibus season, is presented as a drug-induced nightmare after Hirst has been put to sleep by a sinister dentist, played by Donald Pleasence. In between interviews with fellow Freeze artists including Angus Fairhurst , Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin , Hirst is seen preparing Mother and Child Divided, his work for last year's Venice Blennale. The piece consists of a cow and a calf, each sawn in half, pickled in formaldehyde and exhibited in four tanks.

Gaga for Dada: The Original Art Rebels

September 2016 •English

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the surreal art movement, comedian Jim Moir (a.k.a. Vic Reeves) presents this documentary exploring the history of Dadism and the lasting influence it has had on himself and others.

Soup Cans and Superstars: How Pop Art Changed the World

August 2015 •English

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.