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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 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 ...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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 ...

  • 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...

  • Ruth Stone's Vast Library of the Female Mind

    Directed by Nora Jacobson • Documentary • 2022 • 77 minutes

    After tragedy strikes, acclaimed poet Ruth Stone retreated to the margins of the literary world, working tirelessly to provide for her children, and transforming her intense grief into poetry, using simple, startling language.

    Using a ...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • Fischli & Weiss

    3 items

    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...

  • 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...

  • 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 ...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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 ...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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.

  • Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace

    Directed by Jeff Dupre • Documentary • With Kehinde Wiley • 2014 • 40 minutes

    The artist behind Barack Obama’s presidential portrait, Kehinde Wiley is known for his vibrant, larger-than-life reinterpretations of classical portraits featuring young Black men. “Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace” ...