Arts & 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 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...

  • Glenn Gould: On & Off the Record

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    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...

  • Edward Hopper

    Directed by Ron Peck • Documentary • 1981 • 47 minutes

    A study of the 20th century American painter's life and work.

  • The Poets
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    The Poets

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    "Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought.”—Audre Lorde

    Poetry can be a groundswell for bold ideas. This curated collection will expose you to work ranging from Marlon Rigg’s “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (No Regret),” which illuminates the difficult journey of livin...

  • Starring Picasso

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    Whether animated or experimental, these four films and one series with Pablo Picasso showcase his talent and personality often in surprising, unexpected ways.

  • Zygosis: John Heartfield and the Political Image

    Directed by Gavin Hodge & Tim Morrison • Documentary • With Gavin Hodge • 1991 • 26 minutes

    Documentary tracing the development of Photomontage, based on the pioneering work of John Heartfield, through to the contemporary use of these techniques in advertising and video. The film looks at the wo...

  • Dance Camera West 2022

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    Dance Camera West (DCW) aims to foster groundbreaking talent and to encourage new work in the area of dance film by supporting creation, presentation and distribution of films. DCW presents an annual international film festival in Los Angeles to bring dance to the world beyond the stage and throu...

  • Dance Camera West 2021

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    OVID is proud to present the entirety of this year's Dance Camera West Festival. This selection of films ranges from full-length documentaries to experimental shorts. Dance Camera West aims to foster groundbreaking talent and to encourage new work in the area of dance film by supporting creation,...

  • Alain Resnais: Five Short Films

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    OVID is proud to present five newly restored early short film masterpieces from legendary filmmaker Alain Resnais (1922-2014). Resnais would go on to make his mark in feature films, including the Oscar-nominated Hiroshima Mon Amour, but these early-career shorts demonstrate an already keenly deve...

  • Nelson Algren (two films)

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    OVID presets two in-depth documentaries about the writer, Nelson Algren. Algren (2021) is a new feature documentary which is a journey through the gritty world, brilliant mind, and noble heart of Nelson Algren. Exploding onto the national scene in 1950 after winning the first-ever National Book A...

  • Fischli & Weiss

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    The Swiss artists Peter Fischli (born 1952) and David Weiss (1946-2012), hailed by The New York Times as "the merry pranksters of contemporary art" and by ARTNews as "the best thing in Swiss art since Alberto Giacometti," worked as a creative duo starting in 1979. Their collaboration included scu...

  • Giacometti

    Directed by Michael Gill • Documentary • 1967 • 14 minutes

    The artist at work in his studio shows artist Giacometti drawing and modelling in his studio in Paris.

  • Tina Modotti

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    Two documentaries detail the life of legendary Italian photographer, Tina Modotti, while she was living and working in Mexico.

  • Dance
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    Dance

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  • Films about Films

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    Go behind-the-scenes with these films about films. From acclaimed filmmakers exploring Bergman's remote Swedish home to Chantal Akerman dissecting her filmmaking process, these films pull back the curtain on the history of cinema, how films are made, and what they mean.