Midnight in Paris
While on a trip to Paris with his fiancée's family, a nostalgic screenwriter finds himself mysteriously going back to the 1920s every day at midnight.
Mona Lisa Smile
Katherine Watson is a recent UCLA graduate hired to teach art history at the prestigious all-female Wellesley College, in 1953. Determined to confront the outdated mores of society and the institution that embraces them, Katherine inspires her traditional students, including Betty and Joan, to challenge the lives they are expected to lead.
Miss Hokusai
A daughter is constantly overshadowed by her famous father, but she is determined to make her own mark in the world.
The Savior for Sale
In November 15, 2017, the painting Salvator Mundi, attributed to Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), was sold for an unprecedented $450 million. An examination of the dirty secrets of the art world and the surprising story of how a work of art is capable of upsetting both personal and geopolitical interests.
Phantasia
X-ray images were invented in 1895, the same year in which the Lumière brothers presented their respective invention in what today is considered to be the first cinema screening. Thus, both cinema and radiography fall within the scopic regime inaugurated by modernity. The use of X-rays on two sculptures from the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum generates images that reveal certain elements of them that would otherwise be invisible to our eyes. These images, despite being generally created for technical or scientific purposes, seem to produce a certain form of 'photogénie': they lend the radiographed objects a new appearance that lies somewhere between the material and the ethereal, endowing them with a vaporous and spectral quality. It is not by chance that physics and phantasmagoria share the term 'spectrum' in their vocabulary.
Flower Power - Dutch Women Painters of the 17th Century
In the 17th century, advances in the natural sciences and the invention of the telescope led Dutch women painters to closely study nature and include reptiles and insects in their art. Women such as Maria Sibylla Merian, Alida Withoos and Maria Moninckx advanced botany and zoology with their highly detailed paintings. Almost forgotten, now their works hang in many important museums around the world.
Tim's Vermeer
Tim Jenison, a Texas based inventor, attempts to solve one of the greatest mysteries in all art: How did Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer manage to paint so photo-realistically 150 years before the invention of photography? Spanning a decade, Jenison's adventure takes him to Holland, on a pilgrimage to the North coast of Yorkshire to meet artista David Hockney, and eventually even to Buckingham Palace. The epic research project Jenison embarques on is as extraordinary as what he discovers.
Hyperland
This made-for-TV documentary introduces the layperson to concepts and technologies that were emerging in computer interface design in the late 1980s and early 1990s: hypertext, multimedia, virtual assistants, interactive video, 3D animation, and virtual reality.
Jubilee
Queen Elizabeth I visits late 1970s England to find a depressing landscape where life has changed since her time.
Black Is the Color: African-American Artists and Segregation
Black Is the Color highlights key moments in the history of Black visual art, from Edmonds Lewis’s 1867 sculpture Forever Free, to the work of contemporary artists such as Whitfield Lovell, Kerry James Marshall, Ellen Gallagher, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Art historians and gallery owners place the works in context, setting them against the larger social contexts of Jim Crow, WWI, the civil rights movement and the racism of the Reagan era, while contemporary artists discuss individual works by their forerunners and their ongoing influence.
A Good Marriage
Sabine vows to give up married lovers, and is determined to find a good husband. Her best friend Clarisse introduces her to her cousin Edmond, a busy lawyer from Paris. Sabine pursues Edmond, with the encouragement of Clarisse, but Edmond does not seem very interested.
Hidden Sex: Art and Shame
The representation of genitalia in the fine arts was censored for centuries: sexual organs were discreetly hidden among fig leaves, pearls or sheets; and it is still a taboo today. From Antiquity to the present day, the history of puritanism applied to art and the tricks used by artists to circumvent censorship.
The Painting
For three and a half centuries, from the same day that Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) applied his last brushstroke to the canvas, the enigma of “Las meninas, o La familia de Felipe IV” (1656) has not been deciphered. The secret story of a painting unveiled as if it was the resolution of a perfect crime.
Goya, Carrière & the Ghost of Buñuel
French writer Jean-Claude Carrière (1931-2021) traces the life and work of Spanish painter Francisco de Goya (1746-1828).
Jacob Kainen: The Last Expression
This film follows the life of Jacob Kainen, a prolific but often overlooked artist of 20th Century America. From his immigrant upbringing to his rebellious artistic journey in NYC, his leftist ideologies and eventual impact on the D.C. art scene, Kainen's story is one of perseverance and passion. Despite facing challenges like McCarthyism and career limitations, he found solace in his art, especially with the support of his second wife, Ruth. His legacy as an artist's artist and influential mentor endures, shaping generations of artists to come.
The Joe Stone: Joe Brainard
Joe Brainard (1941-1994) was an artist particularly noted for his work in collage and comics. Brainard’s artistic career took off during his teenaged years in Tulsa, Oklahoma where, along with Ron Padgett and Dick Gallup, he produced The White Dove Review, an art and culture magazine. Both Brainard and Padgett serendipitously moved together to New York City, where Brainard was a prolific artist whose work was showcased in varied spaces such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum. He also frequently collaborated with members of the New York School of Poets, supplying book and cover art and bringing to life visual representations of poetry. Brainard’s writing also received acclaim, particularly his 1975 memoir I Remember.
La grotte Chauvet — hors du temps
Paris, the Mystery of the Disappeared Palace
In the heart of Paris, an entire palace has disappeared. It was the very first residence of the kings of France. Long before Versailles, long before the Louvre, the Palais de la Cité stood on the most prestigious island in Paris, the historic cradle of France, facing Notre-Dame. So majestic in the Middle Ages, this palace has become a ghost of history. Over the centuries, this architectural masterpiece has almost completely disappeared. A trio of experts will resurrect it in 3D. Using science and unprecedented excavations, they will track down the pieces of the puzzle to reconstruct it at its peak in the 14th century, and bring back to life those who inhabited it. From the Romans to the Vikings, from Saint Louis to the cursed kings, all have left clues of this 'Versailles of the Middle Ages'.
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.
Sly Artistic City
Some argue that modern graffiti was born in Philadelphia, where the pioneers of wall-writing became citywide celebrities during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Graffiti eventually consumed the city, and a new mayor made it his top priority to fight back. In the process, the city's Mural Arts Program was born. Philadelphia is now a great outdoor museum. Yet graffiti still thrives, with new writers always ready to replace those who are caught or quit.