Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405

Carving the Divine

November 2019 •Japanese

The documentary Carving the Divine offers a rare and intimate look into the life and artistic process of modern-day Busshi – practitioners of a 1400 year lineage of woodcarving that’s at the heart of Japanese, Mahayana Buddhism.

LA. LA. End

October 2024 •English

The Californian sun, which lights up the city, lights up again every evening in cinemas all over the world". Guided by these words from Blaise Cendrars, L.A. L.A. END is a stroll through Los Angeles, among the remnants of Hollywood's Golden Age. Following in the footsteps of a Marilyn Monroe lookalike, we meet a gallery of characters who paint a sensitive portrait of a bygone era that gradually becomes a portrait of a woman.

David Hockney: Pleasures of the Eye

January 1997 •English

Pleasures of the eye, David Hockney’s work has shown him to be one of the most versatile and influential artists of our time. The British artist invites the observer to take a visual stroll through his paintings and explore the dimensions of time and space. In communicating a new sense of the spacetime continuum, he injects the medium of photography with entirely new and living components. His sensuous theatre sets make us hear music with our eyes and see colours with our ears. The documentary filmmaker Gero von Böhm paints a memorable portrait of a fascinating artist, whose work allows all of us to see the magic in the small and seemingly insignificant details of everyday life.

Ghetto - The Secret Life of the City

January 1996 •Serbian

Belgrade in the 1990s seen through the eyes of Goran Čavajda 'Čavke', the late drummer of Serbian rock band "Electric Orgasm". Under dictatorship of Slobodan Milošević, his city became one of the worst places to live in Europe, while the country suffered highest inflation rate in its history, accompanied by mass poverty and political isolation. Documentary follows Čavke walking through the Belgrade streets where total chaos and decline of moral values rule. He finds his only shelter underground, where his friends - musicians and artists - live and work invisibly.

The Genius of Leonardo Da Vinci

April 2018 •English

Janina Ramirez explores the BBC archives to create a TV history of Leonardo Da Vinci, discovering what lies beneath the Mona Lisa and even how he acquired his anatomical knowledge.

Sarcophagus for a Queen

September 2019 •Czech

Bjørn Nørgaard and a team of Czech glass artists in the demanding process of creating a grave monument for Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik of Denmark.

Odvaha

July 2016 •Czech

Julian Schnabel: A Private Portrait

May 2017 •English

A chronicle of the personal life and public career of the celebrated artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel.

Agnes Martin Before the Grid

September 2016 •English

Agnes Martin is one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. Before she died in 2004 at the age of 92, her paintings sold for millions of dollars and were displayed in the world's greatest museums. Through interviews with her friends, lovers, and classmates who knew her well, insight is gained into Agnes Martin's personality and the development of her creative process before she became known for her grid paintings.

Godard Cinema

June 2023 •French

Jean-Luc Godard is synonymous with cinema. With the release of Breathless in 1960, he established himself overnight as a cinematic rebel and symbol for the era's progressive and anti-war youth. Sixty-two years and 140 films later, Godard is among the most renowned artists of all time, taught in every film school yet still shrouded in mystery. One of the founders of the French New Wave, political agitator, revolutionary misanthrope, film theorist and critic, the list of his descriptors goes on and on. Godard Cinema offers an opportunity for film lovers to look back at his career and the subjects and themes that obsessed him, while paying tribute to the ineffable essence of the most revered French director of all time.

East LA Interchange

July 2015 •English

East L.A. Interchange follows the evolution of working-class, immigrant Boyle Heights, the oldest neighborhood in East Los Angeles from multiethnic to predominately Latino and a cradle of Mexican-American culture in the U.S. The documentary tells the story of how one neighborhood managed to survive the construction of the largest and busiest freeway interchange in the nation and explores the shifting face of community in the United States today arguing why it should matter to us all.

Bone Wind Fire

October 2011 •English

A journey into the hearts, minds and eyes of Georgia O’Keeffe, Emily Carr and Frida Kahlo - three of the 20th century’s most remarkable artists.

Whiteley

May 2017 •English

A visual journey into the life and legacy of one of Australia's most celebrated artists, Brett Whiteley.

LA 92

April 2017 •English

Twenty-five years after the verdict in the Rodney King trial sparked several days of protests, violence and looting in Los Angeles, LA 92 immerses viewers in that tumultuous period through stunning and rarely seen archival footage.

Bronx, New York, November 2019

October 2021 •

Cal State Long Beach, CA, January 2020

October 2021 •English

A wordless portrait of sculptor Jessica Jackson Hutchins shows us the artist in the process of transforming clay into uncanny forms.

Mind of a Monster: The Grim Sleeper

May 2021 •English

An LA serial killer goes silent for decades – but he was just warming up.

Being and Becoming Chua Ek Kay

January 2012 •English

The film offers exclusive and intimate insights into how and why the classically trained artist risked rejection to revolutionize the traditional Chinese ink art form in Singapore.

One Six Right

November 2005 •English

An exhilarating documentary film that celebrates the unsung hero of aviation - the local airport - by tracing the life, history, and struggles of an airport icon: Southern California's Van Nuys Airport. Featuring thrilling aerial photography and a sweeping original score, the film dispels common misconceptions and opposes criticism of General Aviation airports.

How to Get a Head in Sculpture

February 2011 •English

From the heads of Roman Emperors to the 'blood head' of contemporary British artist Marc Quinn, the greatest figures in world sculpture have continually turned to the head to re-evaluate what it means to be human and to reformulate how closely sculpture can capture it. Witty, eclectic and insightful, this film is a journey through the most enduring subject for world sculpture, one that carves a path through politics and religion, the ancient and the modern. Actor David Thewlis has his head sculpted by three different sculptors, while the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, artist Maggi Hambling and art critic Rachel Johnston discuss art's most enduring preoccupation, ourselves.