1. Art is More Precious Than a Hot Dog
"Art is more precious than a hot dog" - Francis Picabia's pamphlet is the title of this color animation of Cartsen Regild's art and the studio recording in black and white.
2. La vera natura di Caravaggio
12-episode docuseries on the life and art of Italian baroque painter Caravaggio.
3. Always Forward (Siempre para Adelante)
Plastic artist Aparicio Arthola talks with his student about the catarsis in his creative process, the loss, death and uncertainty of art life in Nicaragua
4. Eskimo Artist: Kenojuak
This documentary shows how an Inuit artist's drawings are transferred to stone, printed and sold. Kenojuak Ashevak became the first woman involved with the printmaking co-operative in Cape Dorset. This film was nominated for the 1963 Documentary Short Subject Oscar.
It has an average vote of 5.4 on TMDB.
5. Le grand roman de l'homme (Le grand roman de l'homme)
(Le grand roman de l'homme)
6. Unwavering Light
Fernando Lemo's world is fiercely stripped of any external logic, as Jorge de Sena once said. His artistic gesture blends with his own existence, where the poetic principle comes first. And with the light that insists to come through the half-closed door, the fear of life is vanquished in the battle fought with death. Thus, each word is born within another word and each image within another image. Out of how many knives is love made, the poet wonders?
7. Jim Dine: A Self-Portrait on the Walls
Jim Dine: A Self-Portrait on the Walls is a 1995 American short documentary film about artist Jim Dine produced by Nancy Dine and Richard Stilwell. The film follows Dine as he produces an exhibition by drawing in charcoal directly on the walls of a German museum. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
8. White Noise (Ruído Branco)
Through a poetic language, "White Noise" seeks to reflect on the whitening processes that Brazil suffered for 130 years, after the abolition of slavery. How it affects our offspring and makes it difficult to search for the identity of black people in a historically racist country.
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
9. Georgia O'Keeffe: Painter of the Far West (Georgia O'Keeffe, une artiste au Far-West)
Enlightened by her biographer Roxana Robinson and art historian Barbara Buhler Lynes, co-founder of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, this documentary unfolds the fascinating trajectory of the artist who became an icon of American art. Featuring her works, her confidences - between interviews and excerpts of correspondence read by Charlotte Rampling - and her husband's photographs, this film explores the two inseparable passions that marked Georgia O'Keeffe's life and career: Alfred Stieglitz and New Mexico, which she never ceased to travel through, like a pioneer, in order to immerse herself in its Indian culture and its grandiose landscapes.
It has an average vote of 7.5 on TMDB.
10. Dan and Margot
Memories have the power to haunt us forever, whether or not they actually happened. For Margot, the man named Dan who stalked and tormented her for three years of her life is as real as any criminal—even if he's the manifestation of her first serious schizophrenic episode. Margot proves incredible strength in her first-hand accounts of her road to healing. Through art and therapy, she found relief. Through relief, she found a chance at life.
11. Your Day Is My Night (Your Day Is My Night)
Immigrant residents of a “shift-bed” apartment in the heart of New York City’s Chinatown share their stories of personal and political upheaval. As the bed transforms into a stage, the film reveals the collective history of the Chinese in the United States through conversations, autobiographical monologues, and theatrical movement pieces. Shot in the kitchens, bedrooms, wedding halls, cafés, and mahjong parlors of Chinatown, this provocative hybrid documentary addresses issues of privacy, intimacy, and urban life.
It has an average vote of 5.5 on TMDB.
12. One path one collection | Agueda Lozano (Una trayectoria una colección | Agueda Lozano)
The sculptor and painter Agueda Lozano narrates the first contacts with plastic art that she had in her native Ciudad Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua; her stay in France and how was her arrival in Europe; her return to Mexico, and her participation in important exhibitions and sculpture projects, among which the definitive insertion sculpture that she inaugurated in the Plaza de México in Paris stands out. Likewise, she talks about her works in the Payment in Kind Collection, about the characters that promoted and inspired her in her career, and about her aesthetic proposals and creation techniques.
13. Enrico Caruso: A Voice for the Ages (Enrico Caruso - Die ewige Stimme)
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.
It has an average vote of 9 on TMDB.
14. Beyond the mall (Más allá del mall)
Is there an audience for Latin American movies? These are some of the questions posed by an Ecuadorian filmmaker whose latest movie was a commercial flop. He embarks on a query to find answers to his questions and relief for his despair. His research leads him to a giant contraband market in the port city of Guayaquil, where pirated movies from all over the world are sold for one dollar each. Here, he discovers a number of Ecuadorian low budget movies produced by amateurs, with titles he had never heard of before: from action packed productions to evangelical melodramas.
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
15. The Flood
The decision to move to Holland doesn't sound like a wise idea. Why move to a country that could be flooded at any moment? For the last 25 years, the political climate has shifted. The public debate on migration has become harsher, more heated, and polarized. What would have been considered right-wing xenophobia back then, is now considered mainstream. Populists simplify complex realities into good and evil, victims and perpetrators: ‘us’ versus ‘them’. Their rhetoric often consists of dehumanizing words and metaphors. One of these is ‘water’. In reality, water is not an immediate threat to the average Dutch person; but it is a huge threat to the thousands trying to reach the Netherlands. People trying to survive the Mediterranean Sea in rubber boats. Trying to survive winter on the Aegean coast in primitive tents. To them, water really is deadly.
16. MAU WAL - Translated Encounters (MAU WAL - Encontros Traduzidos)
Maurício Dias & Walter Riedweg often say the streets are their studio. From the observation of them and of those who populate them there arise installations about encounters, identity and territoriality. The Brazilian-born Dias met the Swiss Riedweg in 1993. Together they learned that they could boost one another’s ideas. “This marriage became Mau Wal,” says Dias. In this documentary, they present their works and the many characters behind them: people who make day-to-day living in the big cities. Street vendors at a Northeast Brazilian fair in São Paulo, illegal immigrants in their quest for the European dream, street kids and their memories. In stories or in the role it plays, the human element is always a centerpiece to the duo’s work.
17. Marepe (Marepe)
Marepe, an artist from Bahia, produces art with anything he comes across in the town he lives in, Santo Antônio de Jesus. Packs of cigarettes, coconut palms, walls, and memories taken from the streets, go into putting together a personal archeology for this young artist.
18. Pollock & Pollock
Jackson and Charles Pollock, two brothers, two painters, are caught up in the twists of twentieth century American history. The electrical center of their trajectory is New York. Their correspondence resonates with it, questions a myth and brings a painter out of the shadows.
19. Metamorphic (Metamórfico)
Octavio Ocampo is the creator of the metamorphic style painting technique, a technique of overlapping and juxtaposing realistic and figurative details within the images he creates. This is his story.
20. Hollywood, I'm Sleeping Over Tonight
French TV host Antoine de Maximy travels the U.S. from coast to coast, relying on the hospitality of strangers and documenting his experiences with a hand-held camera.
It has an average vote of 6.6 on TMDB.