Art & Culture

From artists exploring and celebrating one another across disciplines — great Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura sees the cinematic in the innovative buildings of Renzo Piano, and Alain Resnais' short films on Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh, and Pablo Picasso's GUERNICA -- to films on erotic poetry and daily life, and the lives of celebrated opera singers in retirement, these are collections of films by and about people who see culture not as some convenient place of escape from uncomfortable realities, but at the very epicenter of urgent human concerns,

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  • The Upsetter: The Life and Music of Lee Scratch Perry

    Directed by Adam Bhala Lough, Ethan Higbee • Documentary • With Lee “Scratch” Perry, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Paul McCartney, The Clash, Bunny Wailer, Marcus Garvey, Carl Bradshaw, Eve, Benicio Del Toro • 2008 • 95 minutes

    THE UPSETTER tells the wild, weed-fueled story of Lee “Scratch” Perry — a ...

  • Far Off Sounds (series)

    21 items

    Far Off Sounds is a documentary series that explores how people use, play, and connect with music around the world. Japanese noise artists, Ethiopian jazz musicians, cult leaders, heavy metal cruises and more. The show tells discreet, intimate stories, in the service of the larger, infinitely com...

  • Visual Arts (collection)

    66 items

  • Contact (series)

    9 items

    What is the story behind the most famous iconic photos from around the world? A unique and fascinating journey into the contact sheets of world renowned photographers from Magnum, the legendary agency founded in 1947.

    Contact sheets are the first overview for the photographer of what he has capt...

  • Music (collection)

    68 items

  • Fiddlin’

    Directed by Julie Simone • Documentary • With Presley Barker, Wayne C. Henderson, Kitty Amaral • 2019 • 88 minutes

    Sister filmmakers Julie Simone and Vicki Vlasic return to their Appalachian roots to film at the world's oldest Fiddler's Convention. With multiple generations jamming together, Fid...

  • Pollock & Pollock

    Directed by Isabelle Rèbre • Documentary • With Sylvia Winter Pollock, Francesca McCoy Pollock, James McCoy, Helen Harrison, Peter Namuth, Terence Maloon, Dominic Gould, Rebecca Pauly, • 2020 • 82 minutes

    The film tells the story of two brothers, two American painters: Jackson Pollock and Charle...

  • The Booksellers

    Directed by D.W. Young • Documentary • With Fran Lebowitz, Parker Posey • 2020 • 98 minutes

    Antiquarian booksellers are part scholar, part detective and part businessperson, and their personalities and knowledge are as broad as the material they handle. They also play an underappreciated yet ess...

  • Accordions Rising

    Directed by Roberta Cantow • Documentary • With Guy Klucevsek, William Schimmel, Pauline Oliveros • 2016 • 74 minutes

    What if everything we thought we knew about the accordion were wrong? This film shatters the mistaken notions and tells the real story. Accordions have returned, not only with am...

  • Artists and Love (2 Seasons)

    2 seasons

    From Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz to Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, ARTISTS & LOVE delves into the tumultuous romantic and creative partnerships that shaped some of the towering figures of modern art. Over the course of two seasons, directors Stéphanie Colaux and Delphine Deloget chronicl...

  • Alan Magee: art is not a solace

    Directed by P. David Berez, David Wright • Documentary • 2019 • 60 minutes

    Best known for his captivating realist paintings, artist Alan Magee also creates works that delve into the darkest aspects of human nature. His arresting images which comment on corporate greed, on cruelty and gun violenc...

  • The Last Angel of History

    Directed by John Akomfrah • Documentary • 1996 • 45 minutes

    John Akomfrah, director of Seven Songs of Malcolm X, returns with an engaging and searing examination of the hitherto unexplored relationships between Pan-African culture, science fiction, intergalactic travel, and rapidly progressing c...

  • Love Express: The Disappearance of Walerian Borowczyk

    Directed by Kuba Mikurda • Documentary • With Bertrand Bonello, Neil Jordan, Patrice Leconte, Slavoj Žižek, Terry Gilliam, Andrzej Wajda • 2018 • 76 minutes

    How does a filmmaker go from creating cutting-edge work and competing in Cannes to being labelled a failed erotic filmmaker? The debut docu...

  • Jazz on Film

    11 items

    A selection of films that incorporate jazz into their story. Ranging from Shirley Clarke's The Connection, a play within a play within a jazz concert, to portraits of jazz musicians like Ornette Coleman and Marcus Miller, these films celebrate and appreciate the music art form.

  • Ronnie's

    Directed by Oliver Murray • Documentary • With Ronnie Scott, Dizzy Gillespie, Jimi Hendrix, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Van Morrison, Chet Baker, Quincy Jones • 2020 • 102 minutes

    Ronnie’s chronicles the life of saxophonist Ronnie Scott, a poor, Jewish kid growing up in 1940s East End, London ...

  • Seraphine (Martin Provost)

    Directed by Martin Provost • Drama • With Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur • 2009 • 125 minutes

    Séraphine is the true story of Seraphine Louis aka Séraphine de Senlis (Yolande Moreau), a simple and profoundly devout housekeeper who in 1905 at age 41 — self-taught and with the instigation of her guar...

  • The Silence of Mark Rothko

    Directed by Marjoleine Boonstra • Documentary • 2014 • 52 minutes

    'He wanted the viewer to step into the painting. What he aimed for was not a consumption of art, but a dialogue. He thought that art could transform the public.' -Annie Cohen-Solal, Mark Rothko biographer Painter Mark Rothko is be...

  • Sol LeWitt

    Directed by Chris Teerink • Documentary • 2012 • 72 minutes

    'Conceptual artists leap to conclusions logic cannot reach,' Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) said in a rare audio-interview from 1974. Notoriously camera-shy, Lewitt refused awards and rarely granted interviews, yet in Chris Teerink's sensitive ...

  • Preserving Worlds (series)

    2 seasons

    Preserving Worlds is a documentary travelogue through aging and beloved virtual worlds. Join us as we explore dated chat environments, appreciate player-created art, and meet people working against obsolescence to keep the communities they care about alive and accessible. Virtual worlds are delic...

  • The Adventurers of Modern Art (series)

    6 items

    Adapted from Dan Franck’s literary trilogy Bohemian Paris, Libertad! and Midnight, the story plunges us into Parisian life at the beginning of the twentieth century, a hotbed of artistic creation with the blossoming of Fauvism, Cubism, Dadaism and Surrealism. Through illustrations, animation and ...

  • Theater (collection)

    19 items

  • Glenn Gould: On & Off the Record (two films)

    2 items

    These two classic documentaries show different sides of legendary Canadian pianist, Glenn Gould.

    ON THE RECORD follows Gould to New York City. There, we see the renowned concert pianist kidding the cab driver, bantering with sound engineers at Columbia Records, and then, alone with the piano, fa...

  • The Story of Film: An Odyssey (series)

    15 items

    The Story of Film: An Odyssey is an unprecedented cinematic event, an epic journey through the history of world cinema that is a treat for movie lovers around the globe. Guided by film historian Mark Cousins, this bold 15-part love letter to the movies begins with the invention of motion pictures...

  • The Way Things Go

    Directed by Peter Fischli & David Weiss • Documentary • 1987 • 30 minutes

    Inside a warehouse, Swiss artists Peter Fischli (b. 1952) and David Weiss (1946—2012) built an enormous, precarious structure 100 feet long made out of common household items—tea kettles, tires, old shoes, balloons, wooden...