David Lynch: The Art Life (2017)

Extinguished

In a world where flames represent love, it's easy to get your heart burned.

Chuck Norris vs Communism

In late eighties, in Ceausescu's Romania, a black market VHS bootlegger and a courageous female translator brought the magic of Western films to the Romanian people and sowed the seeds of a revolution.

The Tube with a Hat

A father and son go to town to try to fix a broken TV set.

On the Way to School

One year in the life of a Turkish teacher, teaching the Turkish language to Kurdish children in a remote village in Turkey. The children can't speak Turkish, the teacher can't speak Kurdish and is forced to become an exile in his own country. On the Way to School is a film about a Turkish teacher who is alone in a village as an authority of the state, and about his interaction with the Kurdish children who have to learn Turkish. The film witnesses the communication problem emphasizing the loneliness of a teacher in a different community and culture; and the changes brought up by his presence into this different community during one year. The film chronicles one school year, starting from September 2007 until the departure of the teacher for summer holiday in June 2008. During this period, they begin to know and understand each other mutually and slowly.

The Candidate

A team of advisers is brought in to manufacture the image of Marchand, producing social media profiles, commercials and a new public persona. Conflict arises when it is revealed that not everyone is who they present themselves to be. At his country estate, a rich businessman who wants to be president is groomed by a campaign team to create an image palatable to middle-class voters.

Letter Never Sent

Four geologists are searching for diamonds in the wilderness of Siberia. After a long and tiresome journey they manage to find their luck and put the diamond mine on the map. The map must be delivered back to Moscow. But on the day of their departure a terrible forest fire wreaks havoc, and the geologists get trapped in the woods.

Shock

A couple is terrorized in their new house haunted by the vengeful ghost of the woman's former husband who possesses her young son.

O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization

The world has been ravaged by nuclear war. The planet is frozen and radiation kills anyone or anything that ventures outside of 'The Dome'. Soft is a shepherd for the last remnants of humanity who have gathered together as they await rescue from a mysterious craft known only as 'The Ark.' He wanders among the masses, performing his regular daily tasks; keeping morale from plummeting, wooing prostitutes, squashing rebellions, and sometimes feeding the hungry. But as the true and sinister nature of 'The Dome' comes to light, Soft must ask himself if humanity is worth saving...

The Last Family

Beksiński is a gentle man with arachnophobia, despite his hardcore sexual fantasies and his fondness for painting disturbing dystopian works. Beksiński is a family man who wants only the best for his loving wife Zofia, neurotic son Tomasz and the couple's aging mothers. His daily painting to classical music eventually pays off and he makes a name for himself in contemporary art. Good Catholic woman Zofia tries to hold the family together, but troubled son Tomasz proves to be a handful with his violent outbursts and suicidal threats. Their relief is brief when he starts dating women and becomes a radio presenter and movie translator, and the concerned parents must be on constant watch to prevent their son from hurting himself. But Beksiński never believed that family life would always be sunshine and rainbows. As he tapes everything with his beloved camcorder, the 28-year Beksiński saga unfolds through paintings, near-death experiences, dance music trends and funerals...

Godard Mon Amour

In 1967, during the making of “La Chinoise,” film director Jean-Luc Godard falls in love with 19-year-old actress Anne Wiazemsky and marries her.

Lost in Paris

Fiona visits Paris for the first time to assist her myopic Aunt Martha. Catastrophes ensue, mainly involving Dom, a homeless man who has yet to have an emotion or thought he was afraid of expressing.

Voyage of Time: Life's Journey

A celebration of the universe, displaying the whole of time, from its start to its final collapse. This film examines all that occurred to prepare the world that stands before us now: science and spirit, birth and death, the grand cosmos and the minute life systems of our planet.

Dolls

Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter.

The Plagues of Breslau

Every day at 6 pm a serial killer kills another person. Police officer Helena Rus thinks the killings are done by one man only and decides to reveal the killer's identity by getting back in 18th century history of the city.

Certain Women

Three strong-willed women strive to forge their own paths amidst the wide-open plains of the American Northwest: a lawyer forced to subdue a troubled client; a wife and mother whose plans to construct her dream home reveal fissures in her marriage; and a lonely ranch hand who forms an ambiguous bond with a young law student.

A Woman Is a Woman

Longing for a baby, a stripper pursues another man in order to make her boyfriend jealous.

Babette's Feast

A French housekeeper with a mysterious past brings quiet revolution in the form of one exquisite meal to a circle of starkly pious villagers in late 19th century Denmark.

Bianca

Eccentric and full of manias, Michele is a young high school professor who defines himself as “not used to happiness”. He realizes his life is meaningless if he doesn’t have a woman by his side but, after a series of rather disastrous experiences, he feels more alone than ever. Then, out of the blue, a new French teacher called Bianca arrives at school. Amongst uncertainties and contradictions, the two start dating. In the meantime, a series of homicides take place and a police officer begins to suspect that Michele is involved. Bianca will save him providing an alibi at the right moment, but then, everything goes wrong again.

Fabrizio De André: Principe libero

A biopic on the personal and artistic life of Italian songwriter Fabrizio De André.

Bananas

When a bumbling New Yorker is dumped by his activist girlfriend, he travels to a tiny Latin American nation and becomes involved in its latest rebellion.

Hard Eight

A stranger mentors a young Reno gambler who weds a hooker and befriends a vulgar casino regular.

The Elephant Man

A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his "owner" as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity. Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the film), a severely deformed man in 19th century London.

Yours, Mine & Ours

Admiral Frank Beardsley returns to New London to run the Coast Guard Academy, his last stop before a probable promotion to head the Guard. A widower with eight children, he runs a loving but tight ship, with charts and salutes. The kids long for a permanent home. Helen North is a free spirit, a designer whose ten children live in loving chaos, with occasional group hugs. Helen and Frank, high school sweethearts, reconnect at a reunion, and it's love at first re-sighting. They marry on the spot. Then the problems start as two sets of kids, the free spirits and the disciplined preppies, must live together. The warring factions agree to work together to end the marriage.

Conspiracy Theory

A man obsessed with conspiracy theories becomes a target after one of his theories turns out to be true. Unfortunately, in order to save himself, he has to figure out which theory it is.

Free Fire

Set in Boston in 1978, a meeting in a deserted warehouse between two gangs turns into a shoot-out and a game of survival.

The Night Before the Exams

Rome, 1989. On his last day of high school, Luca gets in trouble when he takes it all out on hated literature teacher Martinelli, only to discover he's going to be heading the examination board for his finals. During a summer of fruitless study, he falls in love with a girl he met once at a party, unaware that she's Martinelli's daughter. The latter, strangely enough, has just offered Luca to prepare with him...

Inland Empire

When actress Nikki Grace gets the lead role in a cursed film, her world becomes more and more surreal, blending realities and ideas of infidelity, reincarnation, and supernatural forces.

The Zookeeper's Wife

The account of keepers of the Warsaw Zoo, Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who helped save hundreds of people and animals during the Nazi invasion.

Jackie

An account of the days of First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, in the immediate aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963.

Dancer in the Dark

Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life gets too difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.

Persona

A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer.

Shame

Brandon, a thirty-something man living in New York, eludes intimacy with women but feeds his deepest desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his younger sister temporarily moves into his apartment, stirring up bitter memories of their shared painful past, Brandon's life, like his fragile mind, gets out of control.

47 Ronin

Kai—an outcast—joins Oishi, the leader of 47 outcast samurai. Together they seek vengeance upon the treacherous overlord who killed their master and banished their kind. To restore honour to their homeland, the warriors embark upon a quest that challenges them with a series of trials that would destroy ordinary warriors.

Child's Play

An innocent-looking doll is inhabited by the soul of a serial killer who refuses to die.

Being John Malkovich

One day at work, unsuccessful puppeteer Craig finds a portal into the head of actor John Malkovich. The portal soon becomes a passion for anybody who enters its mad and controlling world of overtaking another human body.

The Past Is a Grotesque Animal

A personal, accessible look at an artist - Kevin Barnes, frontman of the endlessly versatile indie pop band of Montreal - whose pursuit to make transcendent music at all costs drives him to value art over human relationships. As he struggles with all of those around him, family and bandmates alike, he's forced to reconsider the future of the band, begging the question - is this really worth it?

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.

Semi Colin

Challenging all notions of genre, Semi Colin is a living, breathing art installation. Part performance, part art, part social comment, Colin philosophizes on his life's obsessive work as an erotic artist.

Make Me Famous

An investigation of Edward Brezinski, an ambitious, charismatic Lower East Side painter hell-bent on sucess, who thwarted his own career with antics that roiled NYC’s art elite. Brezinski’s quest for fame gives an intimate portrait of the art world’s attitude towards success and failure, fame and fortune, notoriety and erasure.

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.

Create or Die

In an industry that is becoming increasingly competitive, what drives indie filmmakers to keep creating their art, even when there is no promise of money or fame? CREATE OR DIE explores the insatiable passion to create despite the overwhelming odds through the lens of South Carolina writer and filmmaker David Axe, as he and his band of cast and crew head out into the backwoods of Georgia to shoot his low budget passion project ACORN. But when tragedy strikes on set, doubt and tension threaten to bring an end to their production and their dreams.

Counter Shot: Departure of the Filmmakers

Documentary about filmmakers of the New German Cinema who were members of the legendary Filmverlag für Autoren (Film Publishing House for Authors). Among them are Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Wim Wenders.

Open Wide

John Mew thinks we're all ugly. And modern living is to blame. For decades he's waged a lonely war against orthodontics and that teenage rite of passage - braces. With his son now taking up the fight, Mew's fringe theories suddenly find an enthusiastic audience online.

Jane by Charlotte

Charlotte Gainsbourg looks at her mother Jane Birkin in a way she never did, overcoming a sense of reserve. Using a camera lens, they expose themselves to each other, begin to step back, leaving space for a mother-daughter relationship.

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.

Baldiga: Unlocked Heart

Using diary excerpts, photographs and memories from companions, the film paints the portrait of the artist Jürgen Baldiga who sensitively and authentically captured the West Berlin queer scene of the 1980s and early 1990s with his camera.

Jim Morrison: The End

Paris, Rue Beautreillis, July 3, 1971. The corpse of rock star Jim Morrison is found in a bathtub, in the apartment of his girlfriend Pamela Courson. The chronicle of the last months of the life of the poet, singer and charismatic leader of the American band The Doors, one of the most influential in the history of rock.

Jack Kerouac's Road: A Franco-American Odyssey

Part documentary, part drama, this film presents the life and work of Jack Kerouac, an American writer with Québec roots who became one of the most important spokesmen for his generation. Intercut with archival footage, photographs and interviews, this film takes apart the heroic myth and even returns to the childhood of the author whose life and work contributed greatly to the cultural, sexual and social revolution of the 1960s.

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.

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.

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.

Lili

A heartwarming story about a precautious, 8-year-old girl exploring the world with her globetrotting father and growing up in an unconventional family.

The Rembrandt Association, an exceptional year

Documentary about the Rembrandt Association. In the 19th century, a lot of Dutch art disappeared abroad, before the Rembrandt Association stood up in 1883 to put a stop to it. Today, 140 years later, the Association still helps determine what art lovers see in Dutch museums. In their crowning year, the Association faces a difficult choice: will they make the largest contribution in their history to the purchase of Rembrandt's De Vaandeldrager? The amount of 175 million needed for the painting is causing discussion. Is this money well spent?

Big Big Big

A couple decides to watch Big, a successful film released in 1988, starring Tom Hanks and directed by Penny Marshall, not once, but thirty times, sometimes accompanied by family and friends who come to their home to watch and discuss it.

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.

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.

Abducted in Plain Sight

A family falls prey to the manipulative charms of a neighbor, who abducts their adolescent daughter. Twice.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.