Tale of Two Mothers (2019)

Eating Sea Urchins

A surrealist home movie, filmed by Luis Buñuel in Cadaqués in 1930, focusing on Salvador Dalí's father and his wife.

Der dritte Bruder

While searching for her grandmother, the director comes across the story of three brothers who are torn between the fronts of political ideologies in the Third Reich and divided Germany: "the third brother" is the filmmaker's grandfather, who, in confronting her father, tries to overcome decades of speechlessness and, in the process, to understand where in the past her father's sense of family fell by the wayside.

Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars

An unflinching and deeply personal journey into the life and work of guitarist Eric Clapton told through his own words and songs.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, artiste absolu

The life and work of New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat have been marked by a long quest for identity, by his Haitian and Puerto Rican family origins and by a founding trip to Africa. To portray this major painter of the 20th century, who died in 1988 at only 27 years old, is also to evoke the place of black American artists in the conservative and racist America of the Reagan years.

Up the Yangtze

At the edge of the Yangtze River, not far from the Three Gorges Dam, young men and women take up employment on a cruise ship, where they confront rising waters and a radically changing China.

The Smuggler and Her Charges

A captivating and personal detective story that uncovers the truth behind the childhood of Michaël Prazan's father, who escaped from Nazi-occupied France in 1942 thanks to the efforts of a female smuggler with mysterious motivations.

77 Years Back

Born in 1943 in Bessarabia region, Victor was forced to flee his homeland because of the war. After 77 years, his grandson, Dan, goes back there with his grandpa, Victor, who is recounting memories and seeking information about his birth and his lost relatives, in the country that is now the Republic of Moldova.

Prince Consorts: In the Shadow of the Crown

No profession, no say, no freedom of expression. Life as a prince consort is not exactly pleasure taxing. No constitution ascribes any function to the husband of a queen. Nowhere does it say what he must or must not do. A life in the shadow of the crown. Can that go well?

The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism

Taking its lead from French artists like Renoir and Monet, the American impressionist movement followed its own path which over a forty-year period reveals as much about America as a nation as it does about its art as a creative power-house. It’s a story closely tied to a love of gardens and a desire to preserve nature in a rapidly urbanizing nation. Travelling to studios, gardens and iconic locations throughout the United States, UK and France, this mesmerising film is a feast for the eyes. The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism features the sell-out exhibition The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement, 1887–1920 that began at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and ended at the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut.

Picasso's Last Stand

Biographer Sir John Richardson and Picasso’s granddaughter, Diana Widmaier Picasso, are the star witnesses in a documentary that reassesses the artist’s output in the years before his death in 1973. The story is of a creative spirit finding new impetus in response to both death’s approach and the censure of contemporaries and critics. Those who were members of Picasso’s private inner circle – gossip about his lifestyle also helped to fire him back up – put the later work forward as some of his frankest, wittiest and most profound.

Strudel Sisters

Two elderly sisters share the delicate art of making traditional Hungarian strudel and reveal a deeply personal family story about their mother, who taught them everything they know.

My Uncle Manolo

Focused on the experiences of Manuel "Manolo" Díaz Caballero, who was a local police officer in Malaga for more than 30 years, his memories of those years are the subject of this documentary.

The Beaches of Agnès

Filmmaking icon Agnès Varda, the award-winning director regarded by many as the grandmother of the French new wave, turns the camera on herself with this unique autobiographical documentary. Composed of film excerpts and elaborate dramatic re-creations, Varda's self-portrait recounts the highs and lows of her professional career, the many friendships that affected her life and her longtime marriage to cinematic giant Jacques Demy.

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.

Becoming Madonna

Madonna's rise to fame from 1978 to 1992, exploring her personal life, controversies, and the challenges she faced during that period.

Living With Lincoln

Filmmaker Peter Kunhardt examines how a one-of-a-kind collection of Abraham Lincoln photos and memorabilia have profoundly shaped the lives and sensibilities of five generations of his family.

Aranzazú, a memory of ruins

The celebration of a city is held every year and nostalgia is the main guest. Around the city there is nothing but ruins and in the distance, four men walk the streets of a city that was once great.

The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl

This documentary recounts the life and work of one of most famous, and yet reviled, German film directors in history, Leni Riefenstahl. The film recounts the rise of her career from a dancer, to a movie actor to the most important film director in Nazi Germany who directed such famous propaganda films as Triumph of the Will and Olympiad. The film also explores her later activities after Nazi Germany's defeat in 1945 and her disgrace for being so associated with it which includes her amazingly active life over the age of 90.

Faces from Home

In an empty house, we see the memories of a home, from those who once lived and filled it with joy and love.

Phantoms of the Sierra Madre

A Danish writer travels to Mexico with the purpose of locating a mysterious Apache tribe that fervently seeks to remain in obscurity.

The Giacomettis

The rugged Swiss mountain valley of Bregaglia has produced an entire dynasty of artists: the Giacomettis. Alberto revolutionised the art world with his slender sculptures. Before him, his father was an Impressionist of the first hour. What makes this valley the birthplace of so many artists?

Conversations Between Shifts

A portrait of Chicagoland ICU nurse Jeanette Alvarez-Basem captured through the perspective of her son Ben Basem. Between her night shifts and Illinois Nurses Association union meetings, Jeanette navigates what it means to be a nurse and a human during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We Remember Marilyn

We Remember Marilyn. Marilyn Monroe transforms from Norma Jean, a cuddly teenager, into the most recognizable face and body in the world in these home movies, photos and film clips which span her early bit parts to her most known roles.

Jim Carrey: America Unmasked

Composed of numerous archives and film clips, this documentary is the story of a transgressive actor, a pirate who came to crack America's too perfect mask to reveal its most infantile and moronic face, right in the heart of the Hollywood system.

Little Richard: I Am Everything

The story of the black, gay origins of rock n' roll. It explodes the whitewashed canon of American pop music to reveal the innovator – the originator – Richard Penniman. Through a wealth of archive and performance that brings us into Richard's complicated inner world, the film unspools the icon's life story with all its switchbacks and contradictions.

JVG-elokuva: Vuodet ollu tuulisii

Documentary about Finnish rap-duo JVG. In addition to the unprecedented video footage recorded over a ten-year period, the film features JVG and the background influencers, family members, and friends who built its story.

The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye

An intimate, affecting portrait of the life and work of ground-breaking performance artist and music pioneer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV) and their wife and collaborator, Lady Jaye, centered around the daring sexual transformations the pair underwent for their 'Pandrogyne' project.

Revealed: Otto By Otto

Inspired to make an original, intimate family portrait, Gracie Otto directs a feature length documentary on her father, Barry Otto, whose career in Australian theatre, film and television has spanned more than 50 years. Baz as he is affectionately known is one of a kind - a truly creative, endearing and extremely eccentric personality who embraces the serious and the silly. This story is about Gracie's relationship with her father, in the twilight of his career and his life, as she tries to capture his memories, before his memory disappears. This is not a traditional biopic, but a deeply personal, artistic and cinematic reflection. Sometimes poignant in its exploration of deteriorating health, the film looks at the world through Baz's eyes, an ode to living a passionate life, that both honours him and preserves his memory.

Leonardo: The Mystery of the Lost Portrait

Leonardo da Vinci is not just the most famous and most admired of all painters - he is an icon, a superstar. Yet, the man himself remains elusive. Accounts during his lifetime describe a man too handsome, too strong, too perfect to be accurate. But in 2009, the chance discovery in the South of Italy of an ancient portrait with strangely familiar features takes the art world by storm. Could this be an unknown self-portrait by Leonardo da Vinci? Controversy erupts among the experts. The implications of such a discovery have far-reaching consequences for our understanding of the work of this great Renaissance master.

Bloed

Elles Kiers and Sjef Meijman lived intensively with four Bunte Bentheimer pigs for seven months. During the slaughter month they had their beloved pig Bom killed and then prepared it themselves. The short documentary Blood (Dinanda Luttikhedde, 2011) follows the visual artists in the final phase of their research project into the origin of our food. A valuable ritual unfolds around the processing of this animal.

Portrait of David Hockney

Filmed at the time Hockney was painting Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, Portrait of David Hockney is made up of a limited number of shots, observing the periphery details of his flat and studio. Each view is held so as to focus on its particular qualities and composition and, with the accompanying soundtrack of off-screen phone calls, conversations and musings, builds up a picture of Hockney’s daily life.

Pavarotti

Featuring never-before-seen footage, concert performances and intimate interviews, filmmaker Ron Howard examines the life and career of famed opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti.

The story of Freddie Mercury

This documentary tells the story of Freddie Mercury in the form of a trip to England in which we retrace his life, visiting the apartments he lived in, the studios in which he recorded his albums, his school friends and the venues in which he gave his most memorable concerts. Every one of these locations provides us with the opportunity to look back over Freddie Mercury’s career, and to interview those who knew him.

Nazaten

Frans Bromet goes in search of his family history and discovers that Hermanus Bromet was a well-known slave trader in Suriname. Should he feel guilty for what his ancestor did? How do you deal with a burdened family past?

Michael Palin In Wyeth's World

Michael Palin heads for rural Pennsylvania and Maine to explore the extraordinary life and work of one of America's most popular and controversial painters, Andrew Wyeth. Fascinated by his iconic painting Christina's World, Palin goes in search of the real life stories that inspired this and Wyeth's other depictions of the American landscape and its hard grafting inhabitants. Tracking down the farmers, friends and family featured in Wyeth's magically real work, Palin builds a picture of an eccentric, enigmatic and driven painter. He also gets a rare interview with Helga, the woman who put Wyeth back in the headlines when the press discovered he had been painting her nude, compulsively but secretly for 15 years.

Dante's Divine Politics

Dante Alighieri was a poet, philosopher and politician in 1300 Florence. The visionary author of "Inferno", the first book of the "Divine Comedy", he was both a direct witness and a narrator of his times and his poem is a remarkable geopolitical chronicle of a tumultuous period of the Middle Ages from 1300 to 1320, a time when Kings, Popes, rulers and warlords played a deadly chess game for the control of Europe. In this high end docudrama, some of the world's finest scholars will help provide historical context to the unfolding of events, making them accessible to a wide audience, and giving us a privileged viewpoint over one of the most eventful and funding chapters of European history.