1. Un-Documented: Unlearning Imperial Plunder
Un-Documented argues against Alain Resnais and Chris Marker’s film Statues Also Die . Focusing on plundered objects in European museums and listening to the call of asylum seekers to enter European countries, their former colonizing powers, the film defends the idea that their rights are inscribed in these objects that were kept well documented all these years.
2. See: An Art Road Trip
Artists Bo Bartlett and Betsy Eby travel the country finding art in their surroundings before being unexpectedly forced to consider what it would mean to lose the ability to see.
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
3. Klimt & Schiele: Eros and Psyche (Klimt & Schiele: Eros e Psiche)
1918. As the roar of the First World War cannons is dying out, in Vienna, the heart of Central Europe, a golden age comes to an end. The Austro-Hungarian Empire is beginning to disintegrate. On the night of October 31st, in the bed of his home, Egon Schiele dies, one of the 20 million deaths caused by the Spanish flu. He dies looking at the invisible evil in the face, in the only he can do: painting it. He is 28 years old. Only a few months earlier, the main hall of the Secession building had welcomed his works: 19 oil paintings and 29 drawings. His first successful exhibition, a celebration of a new painting idea that portrays the restlessness and desires of mankind.A few months earlier, his teacher and friend Gustav Klimt had died. From the turn of the century, he had fundamentally changed the feeling of art and founded a new group: the Secession.
It has an average vote of 6.9 on TMDB.
4. The Art of Grieving
After the untimely death of his 35-year old brother, an artist explores the questions that surfaced from grief by painting 365 paintings and to spur conversation in culture.
5. Planeta Siqueiros (Planeta Siqueiros)
(Planeta Siqueiros)
6. David Hockney: The Art of Seeing
Andrew Marr interviews David Hockney about his exhibition A Bigger Picture at the Royal Academy, made up of works depicting the landscape of his native Yorkshire.
7. Ugly Beauty
Documentary in which art critic Waldemar Januszczak argues that beauty is still to be found in modern art, despite several recent books claiming the contrary.
8. Monsieur Mayonnaise
Artist and filmmaker Philippe Mora is producing a graphic novel about his late father, Georges, widely known in Melbourne as a beloved contemporary art patron and owner of bohemian eateries Mirka Café, Café Balzac and the Tolarno Restaurant and Galleries. Less known, however, is Georges' astonishing history as part of the French resistance during World War II, his friendship with renowned mime Marcel Marceau , and how together they saved thousands of Jewish lives with a fiendishly simple trick involving baguettes and mayonnaise.
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
9. Ego: The Strange and Wonderful World of Self-Portraits
Laura Cumming takes a journey through more than 500 years of self-portraits and finds out how the greatest names in western art transformed themselves into their own masterpieces.
10. Water Lilies by Monet (Le ninfee di Monet)
A journey through the masterpieces and obsessions of the Genius of the Impressionism, down the River Seine, from Le Havre to Paris and then up the river towards Argenteuil, Poissy, Vétheuil, Giverny – ending in Paris. A tour of the Museums displaying Monet's masterpieces: the Orangerie Museum, the Marmottan Museum, the Orsay Museum, ending in Monet's house and gardens at Giverny.
It has an average vote of 7.2 on TMDB.
11. Der Maler Philip Guston – Ein amerikanisches Leben (Der Maler Philip Guston – Ein amerikanisches Leben)
(Der Maler Philip Guston – Ein amerikanisches Leben)
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
12. Art From Art
Experimental research and dissemination documentary about current contemporary art that compiles the opinions, experiences and anecdotes of artists, gallery owners, curators, museum directors and experts.
13. Las Muralistas: Our Walls, Our Stories
Las Muralistas features women muralists whose works cover the walls of San Francisco’s Mission District. The muralism movement that emerged in the 1970s in the Mission District marked the beginning of a tradition of activism, expression, and community building through public art.
14. David Hockney: Joiner Photographs
David Hockney is unquestionably one of the most passionate and versatile experimental artists on the contemporary scene. In the late 1970s the British artist developed a pioneering concept which also changed his perspective on painting – his “joiners”. In this film, the artist himself talks about this photographic approach, a kind of Cubism-inspired photocollage which explores the space-time continuum. Hockney allows the viewer to share in the creative “joiner” process and leads us step by step into the universe of his artistic creativity.
15. Tribute to Leopoldo Mendez (Homenaje a Leopoldo Méndez)
Tribute to Leopoldo Méndez, a prominent Mexican artist, considered the most important printmaker in Contemporary Mexico
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
16. The Business of Thought: A Recorded History of Artists Space
An oral history of Artists Space, the legendary New York artists organization. Told through the voices of the artists, critics and curators who formed it, the film is narrated by voiceover culled from 30 hours of archival cassette tape interviews over a 45 year period. Artists such as Laurie Anderson, Mike Kelley, Hito Steyerl and David Wojnarowicz walk us through the decades. A formally-experimental and raucously-told chronology composed of rare archival documentation, The Business of Thought... is a reminder of the radical potential of the arts and the importance of collective, cultural spaces.
17. Make
MAKE is a feature-length documentary for the modern creative, produced by the team at Musicbed. This film is a question. A conversation starter. It's an examination of the reasons we create and the things that drive us to make something new - passion or success. The film looks to examine the myth of creative success and what it means to live a healthy life as an artist.
It has an average vote of 10 on TMDB.
18. Utopia Ltd.
Anton Spielmann and his two younger friends Basti Muxfeldt and Jonas Hinnerkort are living in their family homes with their parents in an idyllic village close to Hamburg. The three of them founded the band 1000 Robota. The band has an ambitious aim: „We want to cause creation not to remind of it”, and they want to live up to their ideals. In a society affected by economic pressure 1000 Robota are questioning themselves and others and they don‘t want to meet other people‘s expectations. In a world of excessive supply they are looking for significance and want to unite with others to create a new way of youth culture. But soon they have to face some serious difficulties.
19. Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People
The film explores the role of photography, since its rudimentary beginnings in the 1840s, in shaping the identity, aspirations, and social emergence of African Americans from slavery to the present. The dramatic arch is developed as a visual narrative that flows through the past 160 years to reveal black photography as an instrument for social change, an African American point-of-view on American history, and a particularized aesthetic vision.
It has an average vote of 6.2 on TMDB.
20. The Arc de Triomphe: A Nation's Passion (L'Arc de Triomphe, passion d'une nation)
The pride of Napoleon's victories, the Arc de Triomphe, whose first stone was laid in 1806 at the top of the Champs-Élysées, is, along with the Eiffel Tower, one of the most visited monuments in the French capital. Wanted by an emperor, inaugurated under the reign of a king and sanctuarized by the Republic, this patriotic temple polarizes the passions of a whole nation. A historical portrait before "packaging", which teems with anecdotes and unsuspected details.
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.