Seven Heavens (2020)

New York Stories

Three tales of love, ambition, and neurosis unfold in the city that never sleeps. In "Life Lessons" (Martin Scorsese), a tormented painter channels heartbreak into his art. In "Life Without Zoë" (Francis Ford Coppola), a precocious 12-year-old navigates privilege and loneliness in a Manhattan hotel. And in "Oedipus Wrecks" (Woody Allen), a man’s domineering mother literally becomes a looming presence over New York.

John Singer Sargent: Fashion and Swagger

Filmed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Tate Britain, London, the exhibition reveals Sargent’s power to express distinctive personalities, power dynamics and gender identities during this fascinating period of cultural reinvention. Alongside 50 paintings by Sargent sit stunning items of clothing and accessories worn by his subjects, drawing the audience into the artist’s studio. Sargent’s sitters were often wealthy, their clothes costly, but what happens when you turn yourself over to the hands of a great artist? The manufacture of public identity is as controversial and contested today as it was at the turn of the 20th century, but somehow Sargent’s work transcends the social noise and captures an alluring truth with each brush stroke.

Enrico Caruso: A Voice for the Ages

Born in 1873 in a poor neighbourhood in Naples, Enrico Caruso conquered the world with his singing voice. At the age of 27 he got a contract at the Scala in Milan, and his already considerable popularity skyrocketed thanks to the invention of the gramophone. He sold millions of records, and garnered international acclaim. In 1903 he moved to New York to perform at the prestigious Metropolitan Opera, in the role of Radames. But his riches and fame attracted the attention of the Mafia, who started blackmailing him. He felt trapped by his fame and died at just 48 years old. Biographer Francesco Canessa, the music critic Jürgen Kesting and the composer Micha Hamel explain the ups and downs of the man behind the timeless Italian voice.

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.

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.

Francofonia

Master filmmaker Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) transforms a portrait of the world-renowned museum into a magisterial, centuries-spanning reflection on the relation between art, culture and power.

The Wormwood Star

A portrait of artist, actress, poet and occultist Marjorie Cameron, it shows images of her paintings and recitations of her poems. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2006.

Hand of Art

An abstract artist promises to deliver twenty five paintings to an art gallery. As he fights for his creative spark and deadlines loom, he feels his world around him crumble away.

The Science of Sleep

A man entranced by his dreams and imagination is lovestruck with a French woman and feels he can show her his world.

Max Gimblett: Original Mind

Max Gimblett: Original Mind documents the life and process of eccentric, creative genius Max Gimblett. One of New Zealand’s most successful and internationally prominent living painters, Gimblett has been working in America since 1962. The filmmakers spent a week in Gimblett’s Soho loft where he and his devoted studio assistants generously revealed the techniques and philosophy behind his beautiful art.

Uncovered

While restoring a fifteenth-century painting Julia reveals a hidden Latin phrase. A series of murders begin to rock her small world of art experts, patrons and restorers, and she finds that the mystery of the painting is interwoven with the mystery of the deaths around her.

Les vendredis d'Apostrophes

Hours and historical meetings, Pierre Assouline has composed an anthology of the best extracts presented in the form of a primer, which he had commented on by a surprised Bernard Pivot.

She Is Here

In the dining room of the abandoned house a white, faded entity feeds on her pieces. Memories keep her here and time transforms her into something new.

Poison Ivy 2: Lily

A young and naive college art student becomes obsessed with assuming the identity and personality of a departed coed who used to live in her room, and in so doing causes complications that result in two men, a student and her art professor, lusting after her.

Ashes and Snow

Ashes and Snow, a film by Gregory Colbert, uses both still and movie cameras to explore extraordinary interactions between humans and animals. The 60-minute feature is a poetic narrative rather than a documentary. It aims to lift the natural and artificial barriers between humans and other species, dissolving the distance that exists between them.

The Goldfinch

A boy in New York is taken in by a wealthy family after his mother is killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In a rush of panic, he steals 'The Goldfinch', a painting that eventually draws him into a world of crime.

One Minute Reharsal

Actors Isabella Lafin and Rafael Grendene reharsing a scene from the movie Marriage Story (2019).

Distant Nixa

The film choreographically covers the distance between two women and their mirroring selves, under Laurie Spiegel's soundscape and with the ambiance of VHS video. Their bodies, sometimes two and others four, are always connected with a rope, influenced by white noise retro interference, sound scratches and pauses. They approach each other until they connect and then finally completely disappear, nullifying the distance between them. The reverse movement of these similar bodies-idols aims to compose a dance of the two and the one, our close and more distant self and to reach to the void in between them.

Me + Her

Creating a universe between two small pieces of Cardboard. When Jack and Jill of Cardboard City are separated by Jill's torrid illness, Jack must think outside the box to assure they will be together again.

Days, Months, Years and Nothing Else

This short film, built around a randomly chosen name and composed of scenes shot within a single room over the course of three hours, features an introspective monologue that was shaped and adapted during the editing process. The narrative aligns closely with the emotional tone and visual rhythm of the piece, particularly in harmony with the non-original music selection, Maggot Brain by Funkadelic.

Drawing the Line: A Portrait of Keith Haring

Short documentary about artist Keith Haring, detailing his involvement in the New York City graffiti subculture, his opening of the Pop Shop, and the social commentary present in his paintings and drawings.

I Needed Color

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

The Psychedelic Experience

Experimental movie, where a man comes home and experiences LSD. His kaleidoscopic visions follow, with readings inspired by the Tibethan Book of the Dead.

Bunnyhood

What could possibly be more important than feeding your daughter?

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.

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)

Pecker

A Baltimore teenager who picks up a second-hand camera starts snapping his way to stardom, soon turning into a nationwide sensation, with a fateful choice between his life and his art.

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.

Digging Up the Marrow

A documentary filmmaker turns his lens on an enigmatic conspiracy theorist who claims he's found the entrance to a vast underground city populated entirely by monsters.

Hunting Confessions

"This project consists a visual fluidity of construction, harmony and thoughts taking colors and length from this body of autonomy. Different images between figuration and abstraction are created by meaning and phenomenon letting the decoupage revealing a piece of a strange underworld. I built it like a window opened to the fresh air of improvisation by familiar landscapes, those exact moments articulating a connection between light and movement."

Pablo Picasso et Françoise Gilot : la femme qui dit non

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

Kill Your TV: Jim Moir’s Weird World of Video Art

Jim Moir (aka Vic Reeves) explores Video Art, revealing how different generations ‘hacked’ the tools of television to pioneer new ways of creating art that can be beautiful, bewildering and wildly experimental.