Art From Art (2022)

Achieving the Unachievable

M.C. Escher is among the most intriguing of artists. In 1956 he challenged the laws of perspective with his graphic Print Gallery and his uncompleted master-piece quickly became the most puzzling enigma of modern art. Fifty years later, can mathematician Hendrik Lenstra complete it? Should he?

Mondongo II: Portrait of Mondongo

“This is a film about the end of a friendship. It wasn’t meant to be. Fifteen years ago, they painted my portrait.” (Mariano Llinás)

Canaletto & the Art of Venice

EXHIBITION ON SCREEN open its fifth season with Canaletto & the Art of Venice, an immersive journey into the life and art of Venice’s famous view-painter. No artist better captures the essence and allure of Venice than Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto. The remarkable group of over 200 paintings, drawings and prints on display offer unparalleled insight into the artistry of Canaletto and his contemporaries, and the city he became a master at capturing. The film also offers the chance to step inside two official royal residences - Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle – to learn more about the artist, and Joseph Smith, the man who introduced Canaletto to Britain.

David Hockney at the Royal Academy of Arts

Widely considered Britain’s most popular artist, David Hockney is a global sensation with exhibitions in London, New York, Paris and beyond, attracting millions of visitors worldwide. Now entering his 9th decade, Hockney shows absolutely no evidence of slowing down or losing his trademark boldness. Featuring intimate and in-depth interviews with Hockney, this revealing film focuses on two blockbuster exhibitions held in 2012 and 2016 at the Royal Academy of Art in London. Director Phil Grabsky secured privileged access to craft this cinematic celebration of a 21st century master of creativity.

Cézanne: Portraits of a Life

Dedicated to the portrait work of Paul Cézanne, the exhibition opens in Paris before traveling to London and Washington. One cannot appreciate 20th century art without understanding the significance and genius of Paul Cézanne. Filmed at the National Portrait Gallery in London, with additional interviews from experts and curators from MoMA in New York, National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and correspondence from the artist himself, the film takes audiences to the places Cézanne lived and worked and sheds light on an artist who is perhaps one of the least known and yet most important of all the Impressionists.

Manic Magic: a Poem in Four Parts

A poem about mania written by Omar Zefier. His second film.

Namatjira Project

From the remote Australian desert to the opulence of Buckingham Palace - Namatjira Project is the iconic story of the Namatjira family, tracing their quest for justice.

Bomb It

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.

The Painter and the Thief

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.

Secret Mall Apartment

In 2003, eight Rhode Islanders created a secret apartment inside a busy mall and lived there for four years, filming everything along the way. Far more than a prank, the secret apartment became a deeply meaningful place for all involved.

Bamboo Theatre

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.

Lyonel Feininger – Ein Künstler zwischen den Welten

Lyonel Feininger's work is as individual and unmistakable as he is himself. As a classical modernist artist, he is difficult to categorize. He lived and worked in Germany for a long time. He began his career as a caricaturist, later became known as a painter and headed the printing workshops at the Bauhaus. His work cannot be classified as cubism or expressionism. The film visits places that inspired him, such as Paris, the villages around Weimar and, above all, the Baltic coast - many of which are reflected in Feininger's work and make the development of his oeuvre comprehensible.

I Needed Color

Jim Carrey exhibits his talent as a painter and reflects on the value and power of art.

Hello My Dear

The documentary is titled after Arkadaş Z. Özger’s poem “Hello My Dear” which had caused much controversy in the period it was first published. Considered to be in defiance of heteronormativity, the said poem includes references to the poet’s personality, his family, his relationship to the society, and his “unexpected” death, which came three years after its publication. Today, 50 years after it was written, the documentary follows these same lines in the poem utilising cinematic elements. The documentary also rediscovers the poetics; reaches out to the family, the comrades, the friendships, departing from the official historical accounts, cognizant of his experience of otherness, in pursuit of the “lost” portrait of Arkadaş Z. Özger.

Gauguin: A Dangerous Life

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.

Le Mural

A documentary short by Barbara Bingley-Verseman about the creation of a monumental outdoor mural by her twin sister, LA-based Kat Bing, and Parisian artist Kekli in the lead up to the Paris 2024 Olympics

Gaga for Dada: The Original Art Rebels

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

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.

I'm in Love with Pippa Bacca

Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo, better known as Pippa Bacca, was a 34 years old Italian artist. She crossed 11 countries involved in wars, hitchhiking with another Milanese artist, Silvia Moro, both wearing a wedding dress. This was a performance for peace, trust and hoping to prove that if you rely on others, you’ll receive good things only. After travelling many roads, the two artists decided to split for a while in Istanbul, planning to meet again in Byblos. Pippa left then, alone, and nobody heard from her again.

Kokoschka: Work and Life

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.

Pedro

'Pedro', Liora Spilk's debut feature, paints a humorous and emotional portrait of Pedro Friedeberg, a Mexican plastic artist who became famous in the sixties for the creation of the hand chair. Between grumblings, ironies, reflections on art and disagreements, 'Pedro' achieves an endearing portrait of Friedeberg, and at the same time presents a tribute to friendship and creation.

I'll See You Again

A group of artists settle in a swamp on the banks of the Indre River. Meanwhile, a voice describes a utopian world.

Die Brust in der Kunst

The female breast has been a motif for as long as there has been art. For centuries, people have been creating works that showcase this intimate and emotionally charged part of the body. Today, female artists are questioning traditional ideals of beauty and countering the male-dominated perspective of the breast with their own.

Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition

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.

Under the Weight of a Waking Dream

‘Under the Weight of a Waking Dream’ is Zefier's debut swan song to the ending year. Comprised of poetry and endless enumerations is a diaristic film chronicling the lessons and contradictions found throughout the human experience.

The Majesty of Art

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.

The Real Beauty and the Beast

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.

The Desert Wagon

A couple of artists travels through the Mexico desert to present their puppet show.

Calçada

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'Orsay

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Yayoi Kusama: I Love Me

Captures the avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusamas creative process as she diligently works to complete her series of 50 large monochrome drawings. As her work comes to life, one can witness the essence of her art as it wells up in the conflict between life, death, and love.

Tinkebell - Who Killed the Blue Bird?

Artist Katinka Simonse, alias Tinkebell, is a controversial, very mediagenic phenomenon. In her universe there is no distinction between life, art and activism; Tinkebell is her own work of art. Everything she encounters on her life path can become part of her story. Filmmaker Judith de Leeuw was given access to all images about Tinkebell, including her entire private archive. She thus constructed an archive film about how as a human being, living on the ruins of the past, you can be a character in your own story. What is the price you can afford if you continue to believe at any cost?

The Price of Everything

Featuring collectors, dealers, auctioneers and a rich range of artists, including market darlings George Condo, Jeff Koons, Gerhard Richter and Njideka Akunyili Crosby, this documentary examines the role of art and artistic passion in today’s money-driven, consumer-based society.

Sk8face

Tells the history of skateboard art and its evolution through the decades, as iconic and rebellious skateboarders and artists give firsthand experiences and stories about their art that challenged the establishment.

Renoir and the Girl with a Blue Ribbon

This documentary follows three parallel stories. First, that of the masterpiece, The Little Girl with the Blue Ribbon, this melancholic Renoir work with the "musical face" described by Henri Michaux. The painting was constantly tossed around, shelved by its patrons, looted by the Nazis, found by the Monument Men, recovered by the family, sold to a controversial collector, before finally arriving at the Kunsthaus Zurich. We also discover the painter's biography, and the eventful life of his model, Irene Cahen d'Anvers. Born into the Jewish upper middle class, this free and divorced woman long disowned the painting and left it to her daughter, who was murdered at Auschwitz. Discover the tumultuous journey of this painting, its model, Irene Cahen d'Anvers, and its connection to the dark hours of the Nazi regime.

Cern and the Sense of Beauty

An exploration of the link between science and beauty through the work of scientists at CERN, in Geneva.

Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace

Known for his vibrant reinterpretations of classical portraits featuring African-American men, New York-based painter Kehinde Wiley has turned the practice of portraiture on its head and in the process has taken the art world by storm.