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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33 itemsDance (collection)
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12 itemsJazz on Film (collection)
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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.
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21 itemsFar Off Sounds (series)
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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...
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9 itemsStarring 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.
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5 itemsAlain 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...
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Modernism, Inc.: The Eliot Noyes Design Story
Directed by Jason Cohn • Documentary • With Sebastian Roché (narrator) • 2023 • 79 minutes
From the filmmaker of Eames: The Architect and the Painter comes a new documentary about a pioneer of modern design. Architect Eliot Noyes was one of the leading pioneers of modern design during the mid-ce...
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Zoo Station: The Story of Christiane F.
Directed by Claire Laborey • Documentary • 2022 • 52 minutes
When Zoo Station – The Story of Christiane F. was published in West Germany in 1979 it shocked the public but became an international best seller. The book tells the true story of Christiane Felscherinow, a West Berlin teenager who pro...
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Olafur Eliasson: Space is Process
Directed by Jacob Jørgensen & Henrik Lundø • Documentary • 2010 • 77 minutes
From the huge golden sun of The Weather Project at the Tate Modern until last year's New York Waterfalls, Olafur Eliasson has managed to rattle audiences and art critics alike.
Filmmakers Henrik Lundø and Jacob Jørgens...
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Secret Museums
Directed by Peter Woditsch • Documentary • 2008 • 77 minutes
Throughout the ages, erotic art has been created by some of the world's best-known artists, but it is rarely on public display. Whether it is held in private collections, or kept under lock and key in museums and libraries worldwide, e...
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Concrete Love: The Bohm Family
Directed by Maurizius Staerkle Drux • Documentary • With Gottfried Bohm, Elisabeth Bohm, Stephan Bohm, Peter Bohm, Paul Bohm • 2016 • 88 minutes
Pritzker Prize laureate Gottfried Böhm is widely regarded as Germany’s preeminent architect. The son of a master builder of churches, he’s also the pat...
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Stations of the Elevated
Directed by Manfred Kirchheimer • Documentary • 1981 • 46 minutes
Stations of the Elevated (1981) is a 45-minute city symphony directed, produced and edited by Manfred Kirchheimer. Shot on lush 16mm color reversal stock, the film weaves together vivid images of graffiti- covered elevated subway ...
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Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery
Directed by Arne Birkenstock • Documentary • With Wolfgang Beltracchi, Henrik Hanstein, Sofia Komarova • 2015 • 93 minutes
For nearly 40 years, Wolfgang Beltracchi fooled the international art world and was responsible for the biggest art forgery scandal of the postwar era. An expert in art hist...
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Creating a Character: The Moni Yakim Legacy
Directed by Rauzer Alexander • Documentary • With Oscar Isaac, Laura Linney, Michael Stuhlbarg • 2019 • 76 minutes
What do Jessica Chastain, Kevin Kline, Viola Davis and Anthony Mackie all have in common? They are but a few of the extraordinary actors who have studied under the renowned acting t...
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Glenn Gould: On & Off the Record (two films)
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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...
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3 itemsFischli & 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...
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The Emoji Story
Directed by Martha Shane, Ian Cheney • Documentary • 2021 • 79 minutes
The rapid rise of emoji (Japanese for 'picture character') is a global phenomenon without precedent. Their widespread use and ability to convey complex messages have not only cemented emoji's place as an emerging digital lang...
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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 ...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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 ...
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The Story of Film: An Odyssey (series)
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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...
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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...
