Directed by Lynne Sachs • Documentary • 2004 • 29 minutes
In association with the Center for Southern Folklore, SERMONS AND SACRED PICTURES profiles Reverend L.O. Taylor, a Memphis-based Baptist minister who in the 1930s and 40s built a fiery reputation by lacing his sermons with parables, fables and dramatic visual descriptions.
Taylor was also an inspired photographer and filmmaker with a keen interest in preserving a visual and aural record of the fabric of black American life. He photographed and filmed businesses and schools, the National Baptist Convention, baptisms, funerals, and individuals in the quiet dignity of their everyday lives. Over the years he compiled an extraordinary record of Southern black life before the Civil Rights movement.
This film is an innovative combination of Taylor's films and audio recordings, images of contemporary Memphis, and commentary by his widow and others who knew him, forming an intertwined narrative about the pioneering documentarian and social activist. Taylor emerges as a man of humor, piety and intelligence, vibrantly involved in the community he loved.
Directed by François Lévy-Kuentz • Documentary • 2021 • 53 minutes
A group of friends meet up in the country to spend the summer together. They go to the beach, play cards, and take day trips in the surrounding region. But these aren’t everyday city folk on vacation. The hosts are Pablo Picasso ...
Directed by Stéphanie Colaux and Delphine Deloget • Documentary • 2019 • 26 minutes
This documentary series tells the story of intimate and tumultuous love stories in the context of art history. Each of the couples in this collection answer the same questions: is love compatible with creation? C...
Directed by Laura Mulvey • Documentary • With Miriam Margolyes • 1983 • 29 minutes
This tautly structured documentary sheds light on the work of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and Italian photographer Tina Modotti, women icons of the Mexican Renaissance. The film not only explores the two women's a...