Malen ohne Regeln – Amerikanische Künstlerinnen der Nachkriegszeit (2025)

Lifeline: Clyfford Still

Jackson Pollock said, “he makes the rest of us look academic,” Mark Rothko acknowledged him as a “myth-maker” and Clement Greenberg called him “a highly influential maverick and an independent genius.” Clyfford Still, one of the strongest, most original contributors to abstract expressionism, walked away from the commercial art world at the height of his career. Extremely disciplined, principled, and prolific, Still left behind a treasure trove of works like no other major artist in history. With a wonderful mosaic of archival material, found footage and audio recorded by the artist himself, Lifeline paints a picture of a modern icon, his uncompromising creative journey and the price of independence.

Speaking of Abstraction: A Universal Language

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, abstraction - that most quintessentially modernist innovation - maintains a peculiarly contradictory position. Used, on one hand, by post-modernist artists as just one more quotable style amongst many, it is on the other hand still considered an elitist or hermetic language by audiences intimidated by its lack of recognizable subject matter. Yet ultimately, abstraction continues to be a viable creative path for contemporary artists of all generations, many of whom embrace it as the most inclusive and fundamentally resonant of artistic languages. Filmed at the artists' studios, the Dia Center for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Museum during their exhibition, "Abstraction in the Twentieth Century."

Occurrences of Questionable Significance

When forest animals invade our cities, the world is in disarray. Office vixen Fiona struggles with her banana phone addiction. Will she succumb to it? Temperamental bunny Barbara only gives her stag sugar daddy Nestor his special massage, after he dines her and plays the big spender. This obscure short film pinpoints postmodern tropes of consumerism, eroticism, and art with an homage to the theater stage and references to literature. This work uses a fantasy language and needs no subtitles.

Candle

Confined to an endlessly burning waiting room, a dying sedentary woman experiences herself blurring in and out of her body. In her last remaining fragments she tries to make amends with her spirit before her remaining fragments either decay or create.

Microcosmos

A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.

Metallica: This Monster Lives

Ten years after the release of their controversial documentary Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky catch up with the members of the band at the 2013 Toronto film festival world premiere of their 3D feature film, Metallica Through the Never, using the premiere of the new film as a springboard to reflect upon the legacy of Some Kind of Monster, its influence on the band and their experiences during the decade since its release.

Sexology

In a post-sexual revolution world, roughly one-third of all women have never experienced an orgasm. Armed with shocking sexual data, a bunch of insecurities and a determination to unlock the key to feminine sexual energy, filmmakers Catherine Oxenberg and Gabrielle Anwar seek out sexual experts, tantric masters, researchers, and everyday women to unearth feminism's full potential.

The Way Things Go

Artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss create the ultimate Rube Goldberg machine. The pair used found objects to construct a complex, interdependent contraption in an empty warehouse. When set in motion, a domino-like chain reaction ripples through the complex of imaginative devices. Fire, water, the laws of gravity, and chemistry determine the life-cycle of the objects. The process reveals a story concerning cause and effect, mechanism and art, and improbability and precision, in an extended science project that will mesmerize the mind.

Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids

Documentary depicting the lives of child prostitutes in the red light district of Songachi, Calcutta. Director Zana Briski went to photograph the prostitutes when she met and became friends with their children. Briski began giving photography lessons to the children and became aware that their photography might be a way for them to lead better lives.

Bowling for Columbine

This is not a film about gun control. It is a film about the fearful heart and soul of the United States, and the 280 million Americans lucky enough to have the right to a constitutionally protected Uzi. From a look at the Columbine High School security camera tapes to the home of Oscar-winning NRA President Charlton Heston, from a young man who makes homemade napalm with The Anarchist's Cookbook to the murder of a six-year-old girl by another six-year-old. Bowling for Columbine is a journey through the US, through our past, hoping to discover why our pursuit of happiness is so riddled with violence.

Tarnation

Filmmaker Jonathan Caouette's documentary on growing up with his schizophrenic mother -- a mixture of snapshots, Super-8, answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, and more -- culled from 19 years of his life.

Balkan Inventory

Comprised of images shot by amateur photographers and German soldiers in the Balkans from the twenties through the forties, BALKAN INVENTORY was begun by Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi in response to the tragedy unfolding in the former Yugoslavia.

Elegy of Life: Rostropovich, Vishnevskaya

A documentary about the famous musician Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife, Galina Vishnevskaya.

Heart of Stone

After leaving his village at the age of 12 and traveling thousands of miles, a young Afghan immigrant works for years to build a new life in Paris.

Black Gospel

Dong-keun, Jun, You-mi, members of Korea’s only gospel choir Heritage, along with eight other people travel to Harlem to learn about gospel music and to perform with the Harlem gospel singers. As they go through series of lessons, they begin to realize that Black Gospel is not about brilliant techniques, nor beautiful voices; it is something that begins from the soul.

Bra Boys

A film about the cultural evolution of the Sydney beach side suburb of Maroubra and the social struggle faced by it's youth - the notorious surf gang known as the Bra Boys.

Who's Your Teacher

Public School Teacher Ani Baker talks to six adult film stars about the dearth of comprehensive sex education in schools and their subsequent, unwanted roles as Sex Educators.

The Bridge

The Bridge is a controversial documentary that shows people jumping to their death from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco - the world's most popular suicide destination. Interviews with the victims' loved ones describe their lives and mental health.

March of the Penguins

Every year, thousands of Antarctica's emperor penguins make an astonishing journey to breed their young. They walk, marching day and night in single file 70 miles into the darkest, driest and coldest continent on Earth. This amazing, true-life tale is touched with humour and alive with thrills. Breathtaking photography captures the transcendent beauty and staggering drama of devoted parent penguins who, in the fierce polar winter, take turns guarding their egg and trekking to the ocean in search of food. Predators hunt them, storms lash them. But the safety of their adorable chicks makes it all worthwhile. So follow the leader... to adventure!!

Vodka: A Russian Fairytale

Plot unavailable

Manson: Music From an Unsound Mind

The untold story of Charles Manson's obsession to become a rock star, his rise in the LA music scene, the celebrities who championed his music, his tragic friendship with The Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson and his descent into violence and chaos once his dreams fell apart.

Acadia Acadia?!?

In the late 1960s, with the triumph of bilingualism and biculturalism, New Brunswick's Université de Moncton became the setting for the awakening of Acadian nationalism after centuries of defeatism and resignation. Although 40% of the province's population spoke French, they had been unable to make their voices heard. The movement started with students-sit-ins, demonstrations against Parliament, run-ins with the police - and soon spread to a majority of Acadians. The film captures the behind-the-scenes action and the students' determination to bring about change. An invaluable document of the rebirth of a people.

Cabal in Kabul

This is the story of the last two Jews in Afghanistan. All the other Jews have left a long time ago. Isaac and Zabulon live alone in the abandoned synagogue. The older of the two, the ruddy-faced Isaac, is Kabul’s sorcerer-healer. He makes cabalistic amulets, which he sells to Muslims to drive out demons from women, or from soldiers exhausted by the war. The other Jew, Zabulon, has the same Afghan customers, but sells them the wine, which he produces illegally.

The Taste of Desire

The film uses the oyster and its sensual and lavish associations as a symbol to explore human drives and desires. The oyster takes us on a trip around the world, in which protagonists that all have their own special relationship to the oyster share their ambitions, desires and existential fears. This cinematic documentary explores the intricate nature of our deepest yearnings and quest for self-fulfillment.

The Face of Anonymous

"The Face of Anonymous" by Gary Lang, which profiles Christopher Doyon, a.k.a. Commander X, who has hidden from the FBI in Toronto and Mexico.

The Silence of the Mole

Through some of the last interviews with him before his death, Guatemalan filmmaker Anaïs Taracena bravely and artfully pieces together Barahona's incredible, heroic story, as well as his testimony in 2014 on one of the worst urban massacres to take place during the war in Guatemala: the Spanish Embassy massacre in 1980.

Imad's Childhood

A five-year-old Yazidi boy is released after nearly three years in ISIS captivity. Profoundly disturbed, brainwashed and weaponized by the abuse he endured, he displays violent hatred towards the world around him, and particular revulsion for his mother, who was held hostage alongside him. Imad considers himself to be an ISIS fighter and lashes out against children and adults alike in this intense horror film about a child possessed by terror. As menacing as his behaviour is, it is a mere imitation of the humiliation and brutality he was moulded by. He did exactly as he was told by ISIS in order to survive, and now, surrounded by other survivors, the love of his family and help from a therapist, will he thrive?

Satoshi Kon: The Illusionist

A subtle portrait of Japanese director Satoshi Kon by the specialist of Japanese cinema Pascal-Alex Vincent and a dive into a rich work. With interviews of the greatest Japanese, French and American directors inspired by his work.

Evoé: Portrait of an Anthropophage

A film that mixes labyrinthine recent testimonies and historical images of the career of the tropicalista director, actor and playwright Zé Celso, of Teatro Oficina, one of the greatest personalities of the Brazilian arts of all time. The documentary acquired its main verb in four trips to key points in the trajectory of Zé: Bahia badlands, Cururipe Beach in Alagoas (where Bishop Sardinha was devoured), Epidaurus and Athens in Greece and his apartment in São Paulo.