Les vendredis d'Apostrophes

Konrad Mägi

November 2019 •English

A documentary made for Konrad Mägi exhibition "The Light of the North" in Torino, Musei Reali (2019-2020), about Mägi's life and his legacy.

Botticelli

September 2015 •German

Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) is both a cultural icon and a lasting source of artistic inspiration. His famous female figures, like Venus and Primavera, have become part of our shared visual memory and influence artists worldwide. Berlin director and art historian Grit Lederer explores Botticelli’s life and work, focusing on the Gemäldegalerie’s impressive collection. The film examines how his iconic paintings continue to inspire art and advertising today. Experts reveal what makes his style unique and why his work was forgotten for centuries after his death. Contemporary artists such as French artist Orlan and American Michael Joaquin Grey present works inspired by Botticelli. The documentary traces Botticelli’s enduring impact from Florence through Paris and New York to Berlin.

In Search of Dracula

January 2020 •English

Mark Gatiss explores and celebrates Dracula, an icon of popular culture, asking just why we keep coming back to the count.

Constable: A Country Rebel

September 2014 •English

The Haywain by John Constable is such a comfortingly familiar image of rural Britain that it is difficult to believe it was ever regarded as a revolutionary painting, but in this film, made in conjunction with a landmark exhibition at the V&A, Alastair Sooke discovers that Constable was painting in a way that was completely new and groundbreaking at the time. Through experimentation and innovation, he managed to make a sublime art from humble things and, though he struggled in his own country during his lifetime, his genius was surprisingly widely admired in France.

The Billion Dollar Art Hunt

October 2020 •English

In June 2019, arts journalist John Wilson received an extraordinary tip-off – one billion dollars’ worth of stolen art may be about to be recovered. Included are a unique Rembrandt - his only seascape - and a Vermeer considered the most valuable stolen painting in the world. The art was taken from the walls of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in the early hours of 18 March 1990. It remains the world’s biggest unsolved art heist. For John, to follow the recovery of the paintings, as it happens, would be the biggest art story of the century.

What Price Art? By Tracey Emin

March 2006 •English

Why is it that art by male artists always sells for more than that of female artists? Is it subject matter? Is it machismo? Or is it plain old sexism? In this film, Tracey Emin crosses the country on a quest to find out. She meets artists such as Dame Maggi Hambling and Rachel Whiteread; curators such as Norman Rosenthal and gatekeepers such as Oliver Baker from Sotherby's? Have things changed? Or is it society that needs to change before the art market can follow?

Gerhard Richter: 4 Decades

February 2005 •English

Curator Robert Storr takes us through the 2002 MoMA Gerhard Richter retrospective.

Bombin'

January 1987 •English

First broadcast in 1987 on the UK's Channel 4, Bombin' is a documentary about Afrika Bambaataa's Zulu nation bringing American hip-hop culture to the UK for first time. The main focus is the graffiti art of Brim and the variety of reactions he is faced with from the British public and press.

Diáře a romány Pavla Kohouta

January 2008 •Czech

Hana Zelinová

January 1995 •Slovak

Van Gogh: Of Wheat Fields and Clouded Skies

April 2018 •Italian

A new look at Van Gogh, through the legacy of the largest private collector of artworks by the Dutch painter: Helene Kröller-Müller (1869-1939), who, in the early 20th Century, ended up buying nearly 300 of his works, paintings and drawings included.

James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket

August 1989 •English

James Baldwin was at once a major 20th century American author, a Civil Rights activist and, for two crucial decades, a prophetic voice calling Americans, black and white, to confront their shared racial tragedy.

The Cremaster Cycle: A Conversation with Matthew Barney

February 2004 •English

For his five Cremaster films Matthew Barney's created a multitude of sculptural forms and structures. Recently both the sculptures and the films traveled to museums in Cologne, Paris and New York's Guggenheim. In THE CREMASTER CYCLE: A Conversation with Matthew Barney, the artist guides the camera through this remarkable creation at the Guggenheim Museum while being questioned by Michael Kimmelman, chief art critic of the New York Times.

Zoran

January 2023 •Serbian

The story of the circumstances in which Zoran matured as an artist, learning from the best. Zoran is a master at turning every seemingly difficult situation into an opportunity. And it does it all with incredible ease. His sculptures are alive. That is why the North American Indians gave him the Indian name Tunka Kitka - The man who awakens the stone.

In the Rain

March 2017 •Basque

Euritan is a review of the narrative 'Klara eta biok', written by Itxaro Borda in 1985. Putting the author against the words of her past, it updates her view on the peripheral relationship around the Basque character.

Minted

June 2023 •English

A fascinating look at the intersection of art, commerce, and digital ownership through the rise and crash of the NFT market.

Kentridge and Dumas in Conversation

Invalid date •English

William Kentridge and Marlene Dumas – two of the most celebrated names in international contemporary art – come face to face in a series of frank, witty and intense discussions about their work and practice. The film follows them from the gentle ambience of a dinner conversation, to their studios – where we are given insight into the way that each artist works – to some of their finished works and installations. What emerges is how very differently these two highly successful South African artists approach image making. Dumas’ method is deeply intuitive – she often works on the floor as though embracing her paintings, pouring and dabbing paint to produce her remarkable portraits. Kentridge is intensely systematic, alternating gestural mark making with the repetitive action of drawing-filming-erasing for his animated films.

Generation Yamakasi

October 2006 •French

For the Yamakasi the "Art of Displacement" is a way of life. Racing through the new cities that ring Paris, climbing walls, swinging from balconies and leaping across rooftops, they transform the oppressive concrete architecture into places of fantasy, possibility and play. The heart of our documentary is the story of how the Yamakasi are transforming the youth of the suburbs, and themselves, through discipline, will and desire. Now, as the Art of Displacement is being embraced as an extreme sport and urban pastime, will the social message be transmitted as well? What is it for the new generation?

The Inspired Island: My City

December 2015 •

Poet and author Xi Xi is one of Hong Kong's most treasured writers. Though also acclaimed in Taiwan and mainland China for seminal works like the essay Shops, her writings are firmly rooted in the spirit of Hong Kong. Leave it to Fruit Chan, another staunchly grassroots auteur, to make a documentary on Xi Xi's career. Chan sought out renowned critics and writers to discuss Xi Xi's works, starting with 1979's My City. He also juxtaposes photos of a changing Hong Kong with readings of her writings, and even playfully inserts characters from her stories into the film.

The Majesty of Art

January 2024 •English

A movie about an artist that had a vision about art and he had expressed that in his paintings, designs, fashion designs and photography and make virtual reality exhibition and virtual reality artworks that people can enjoy and feel it.