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Art Documentaries
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Silly and Serious
Director Dennis Tupicoff
Country Australia
Runtime 26'
Language English
Year 2008
One of Australia’s leading landscape artists, William Robinson has twice won the Archibald Prize for his self-portraits. Shot in Paris, Brisbane and Melbourne, SILLY & SERIOUS presents Robinson at work, playing Debussy, and discussing his work: his love for old Laurel and Hardy movies; how humour and sadness can exist in the same portrait.
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New Brow: Contemporary Underground Art
Director: Tanem Davidson
Country: USA
Runtime: 85'
Language: english
Year: 2009
New Brow: Contemporary Underground Art: This explores the artists behind the Modern art movement. Robert Williams, Anthony Ausgang, Isabel Samaras, Shag, Shepard Fairey, Tim Biskup and the magazine Juxtapoz are just a few of the contemporary artists amd magazine invloved. What traits, other than a title, do these artists have in common? Are they inspired by the world around them or perhaps nostalgic about their youth or adolescence? Is their artwork fantasy or a response to our hyper-paced world? Whatever it may be, their work is visible. You have seen it. You probably just don't know it.
Young collectors have begun to snatch up art work since the early nineties, artwork that doubles in price every year. Older more established collectors have begun to catch on bringing the art in to higher price ranges.
In the same vein as 1983's Style Wars this film examines art and the culture of its time. With the eye of a knowing insider it penetrates the minds of the makers, sneaks behind the curtain and into the smoky backrooms and dusty parlors of the once unknown low brow artist. With interviews, photographs, and video all masterfully combined through motion graphics and charged by a soundtrack toned and created by these very artist�s musical doppelgangers the film aims to capture the zeitgeist of the movement as it rises from underground to mainstream.
Simmering underground for the last 30 years this, this art has managed to simultaneously remain visible, popular and under the radar of all the art world forces that are often responsible for destroying the very movement they so often create. The artist's work can be found on gallery walls, trendy shops, comic books, posters, movies and on the buildings of our cities. It is Tiki, it is urban, it is fine art, it is graffiti, it is surreal, it is illustrative, it is modern art. With inspirations like Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, R. Crumb, and Robert Williams and contemporaries such as Shepard Fairey, Ron English, Shag, and Camille Rose Garcia whatever you want to call it New Brow, Low Brow, or Pop Surrealism its here and its not going anywhere.
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Abraham Obama
Director:Kevin Chapados
Country:United States
Runtime:55'
Format:HD
Language:English
Year:2009
When infamous street artist Ron English�s image of Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama merged together gains national attention for being illegally pasted all over Boston, he decides to gather a crew of artists and musicians and take off across America plastering the image wherever they can find an open wall. In the spirit of Hunter S. Thompson and the Merry Pranksters, Ron English and crew take you on an unforgettable trip through America�s underground.
Along the way the meet up with counter culture heroes such as Shepard Fairey, Morgan Spurlock and David Choe, and spread their subversive propaganda to America�s heartland on a grassroots campaign to get Barack Obama elected. Abraham Obama is a raw unfiltered look at the power of street art and offers a rare glimpse inside the insane lives of some of the most prolific artists in America today.
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One for Shakespeare
Director:John Axline
Music:Webster Young
Country:United States
Runtime:53'
Language:English
Year:2009
ONE FOR SHAKESPEARE explores the creative process of making Shakespeare's comedy "As You Like It" into an opera. One of Shakespeare's most popular plays, it has only rarely been set as an opera. American neo-classical composer Webster Young, who wrote beautiful and lyrical melodies for his opera version, explains the reasons.
This film delves into the creative process through television interviews and musical performances including Young's setting of "All the World's a Stage" and "Under the Greenwood Tree". Before a showcase filmed in New York, Young's music was endorsed by prominent figures of the New York opera world. Musical performances from the showcase and a recording session include 7 arias sung by up-and-coming young singers in New York, and 4 orchestra pieces from the opera.
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A U-Tube Music Fair
Director:John Axline
Music:Webster Young
Country:United States
Runtime:78'
Language:English
Year:2009
These twelve documentary shorts of classical piano, ballet and opera performances were initially posted on YouTube by Webster Young, a neo-Classical composer. They became so popular that he decided to include them in this documentary. The unifying thread in this "music fair" is Webster Young�s commentary who talks about child geniuses in music, the ear for music, writing music and musical instruments.
Young's narration and piano performances are filmed in front of theatrical scenery, not seen in 50 years, originating from the old Metropolitan Opera house in New York. Beautiful excerpts from five original ballets of the Eric Hyrst -Webster Young ballet collaboration are shown. Hyrst was a dancer with the Royal Ballet, while Alicia Alonso and Georges Balanchine became chief choreographers of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal and created over 150 new ballets.
The documentary also features performances by Placido Domingo's frequent stand-in, Spanish tenor Efren Puig and a cameo appearance by Cia Toscanini, the great grand-daughter of Arturo Toscanini.
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Desert Heart
Director: David Batty and Jeni McMahon
Country: Australia
Runtime: 27’
Language: English
Year: 2008
In the remote West Australian Aboriginal community of Bidyadanga, a new art movement has emerged. At its helm is a young Aboriginal man, Daniel Walbidi, who was born and raised here but his parents, grandparents and extended Yulparija tribe come from an area around the Percival Lakes in the Great Sandy Desert.
When the Karrajarri won a claim for native title in 2002 a distinct yearning for their own desert country began to re-emerge. With the realisation that they would never return to their tribal homeland, Yulparija elders worried that their traditional stories would be lost. A desire to paint and record their stories for their children and grandchildren became a pressing concern.
Daniel Walbidi started his journey as an artist from listening to stories from his elders. His early painting inspired the old people to apply brushes to canvas in an explosion of creativity and expression. Vibrant and bold motifs manifested in a discordant array of colours, hot desert reds together with the bright turquoise blues and greens of the coast. It was desert country painted in a saltwater palette. For Daniel an unseen landscape come to life.
After a series of sell out exhibitions, these unique works became the “next big thing” in the Aboriginal art scene. As time passed and more people started to paint, the more the artists wanted to revisit their far off desert sand hills and salt lakes. It was imperative for the elders to revisit Wirnpa country and for Daniel to experience it firsthand.
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Liquid Stone
Directed By: Polly Watkins
Country: Australia/New Zealand
Runtime: 52 Mins
Language: English
Year: 2009
Construction began on La Sagrada Familia in 1883, but after architect Antonio Gaudi’s death and the Spanish Civil War, the building languished for nearly a century.
In 1979, Melbourne architect Mark Burry awash given the chance to crack the code needed to complete Gaudi’s masterpiece. He used aeronautical software to unlock Gaudi’s design strategy and pioneered the use of digital technology now radically changing the way architecture is conceived and visualised.
Now the famously unfinishable building is nearing completion and represent one of the most outstanding technical achievements of modern time.
Liquid Stone explores the extraordinary design enigma that has taken decades to surmount using hands and plaster, supercomputers and aerospace technology. With Mark Burry we decode the cathedral using the same technology, and meet the digital designers and traditional artisans working side by side to realise Gaudis’ impossible vision.
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Medieval Imagination
Directed By: Philippe Charluet
Country: Australia
Runtime: 26 Mins
Language: English
Year: 2008
The Medieval Imagination, Illustrated Manuscripts from Cambridge, Australia and New Zealand was a blockbuster exhibition recently held at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. This documentary looks at the bringing together of 90 hand-made, precious books dating from the 8th to the 16th centuries, including the oldest European book to ever cross the Equator.
Behind the scenes of this exhibition and its creation, lies the fascinating story of the richest repository of Western knowledge and art, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the advent of printing.
Thanks to this exhibition, we can look at these 500 years’ old books and illustrations now and hopefully future generations will be able to do it in 500 years’ time. It is something that is part of where we come from and where we are going to.
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All Things Paper (HD)
Country: Singapore
Runtime: 6x23 Mins
Language: English
Year of Production: 2008
All Things Paper is dedicated to “paper maestros” from Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Denmark, England, Scotland and America. These “paper maestros” are constantly redefining the traditional usage of the humble paper and taking it one step further with their ingenuity and amazing visions.
All Things Paper takes us deep into the wonderful world of unusual paper contraptions and constructions. It will constantly surprise viewers with the ideas, creativity, imagination and craftsmanship of the “paper maestros”. They will demonstrate how paper has become an integral piece of their work and life.
Find out for yourselves how tables, accordion-like chairs and honeycomb lamps can be fashioned out of paper. Jazz up your wardrobe with the latest runway pieces tailored from paper. Feast your eyes on a meal of gourmet paper dishes and much more. Meet the amazing people behind these incredible paper creations on All Things Paper.
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Copy Artists
Country: China
Runtime: 50 Mins
Language: English
Year of Production: 2007
Imagine buying the works of true masters like Renoir, Da Vinci, Van Gough, Rembrandt, Matisse and Raphael for just US$30!
Welcome to the most prolific copy artists in China. The Dafen Village, in southern China, is best described as the oil painting copy capital of the world. It’s here where the masterpiece meets the mass market, where the world’s great and not-so-great oil paintings are copied.
Thousands of artists turn out reproductions of famed European masterpieces, and the not so famous, for homes and businesses around the world. Last year, Dafen generated about US$35M in sales. Thousands of painters supply 600 galleries that fill orders from around the world. In this documentary film, copy-artists reveal what are their thoughts about what their ‘art’ is doing to the art world.
Available Territories: Australia, New Zealand and Latin America only.
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Little Red Art (HD)
Country: China
Runtime: 52 Mins
Language: English
Year of Production: 2007
Think RED and you will imagine danger, love and good luck. But in the eyes of two of China’s most talented modern artists, ‘red’ has layers of meaning that is portrayed in their series of works “Broadcast Exercise” and “Red Memory”.
This is a story of two artists’ opinions and perspectives about China during the cultural revolution and China today. Artists Chen Wenling and Ren Si Hong talk about their inspiration for these powerfully witty and amazingly evocative sculptures that speak volumes in their little red postures.
Through this documentary, viewers will understand China in a very unique way and see an aspect of China they have not known before.
Available Territories: Australia, New Zealand and Latin America only.
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Scissorhands (HD)
Country: China
Runtime: 30 Mins
Language: English
Year of Production: 2008
See China through the talented hands of three famous paper artists in China. “Scissorhands” traces the works and thoughts of Gong Lin, Liang Gui Xin and Lu Xue. Each has his or her different style in cutting up a picture of China which will present a unique perspective not seen before.
Available Territories: Australia, New Zealand and Latin America only.
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Spirit of the Time
The World of Chinese Contemporary Art (HD)
Country: Singapore/China
Runtime: 8x23 Mins
Language: English
Year of Production: 2008
They produce works that have reverberated round the world. From Beijing to Yunnan, a group of artists – variously called contemporary or avant-garde – are painting, sculpting, photographing, and installing images of China as they see it. They create works in their own likeness in the name of cynical-realism; they paint updated landscapes that are a world away from traditional Chinese works, or burn Cultural Revolution materials to form collages of Mao – and the international art world is intrigued. Increasingly, Chinese contemporary art is hot, very hot!
This series visits the world of China’s big-name artists. We observe them at work, visit their inner circles, and listen to their observations about their Motherland. We find out how these artists – who once upon a time knew nothing about selling their works – are coping with earnest collectors begging for new paintings, ever-demanding galleries, and even officials who now see them as China’s “new ambassadors” to the world.
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Voiceless Art
Country: Indonesia
Runtime: 50 Mins
Language: English
Year of Production: 2007
AWARDS 2007
One artist uses his head as his inspiration to paint. Another sees art in poor people. Yet another has created his best art after being held in house arrest. Three very different and highly talented artists show us their world through their paintings of Indonesian society, underscoring the amazing artistic talents of this country.
This documentary literally paints a picture of Indonesia that takes you away from earthquakes, tsunamis and floods. It’s art by the common man about the small people.
Available Territories: Australia, New Zealand and Latin America only.
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Faozan's Space (HD)
Country: Indonesia
Runtime: 50 Mins
Language: English
Year of Production: 2007
Djelos Djokaj is a famous 70 year-old Serbian artist who has won many awards for his art. Faozan Rizal is an artist from Indonesia and is also one of Asia's most critically acclaimed film directors. Between them, the story of their art is one of beauty, resolution and peace as each finds his own answers in the troubling world around them.
Available Territories: Australia, New Zealand and Latin America only.
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Girl In A Mirror
Directed By: Kathy Drayton
Country: Australia
Runtime: 55 Mins
Language: English
2006 Awards
 
2005 Awards
 
The photographs of Carol Jerrems embody the 70’s in Australia, a decade defined by its challenges to convention, morality and social order. At a precociously young age Carol fixed upon her calling as photographic artist, and with an extraordinary discipline and determination, set out to document the world around her with a relentless and uncompromising honesty. She mixed with the filmmakers, photographers and musicians of the urban counter-cultures in Sydney and Melbourne and they, along with the dispossessed – women, children, Aboriginal people and youth gangs, became the subjects of her work.
Jerrems has become the James Dean of Australian photography. The haunting quality of her work is heightened by the tragedy of her early death, at the age of 30, in 1980. With the passing years, recognition and appreciation of the unique power and beauty of her images continues to grow and Vale St has become the iconic image of Australia in the seventies.
Adventurous and forthright in her sexuality, she had affairs with many of her friends, both men and women. This is reflected in her imagery – at times seductive, at others, frankly post-coital. Carol struggled with a darkness that could drive her into retreat for days, even weeks at a time. Her intimate photographic style demanded a closeness with her subjects and she took risks in getting photographs that at times bordered on the self-destructive. Her relationship with a sharpie gang caused concern to her friends. The sense of sexual menace in these photographs is palpable and riveting, and they are some of the most engaging images in her archive.
In 1979 Carol Jerrems endured months of invasive and painful medical procedures to no avail. Carol confronted death with her camera, photographing her changing body and hospital environment until too weak to continue. The journals she kept throughout this period are a moving and insightful testament to her strength, sensitivity, humour and artistry.
Her decline was slow and relentless and a year later, on February 21st, 1980, she died in the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne.
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Reincarnations
Director/Producer:Natasha Guruleva:
Cast: Lori Belilove
Runtime:58 minutes
Language: English
“Reincarnation” is a poetic documentary on one of the greatest American artists Isadora Duncan living through her followers at the present time.
Mysteriously, after over the century passed from the time she lived, Isadora imposes her art and philosophy on contemporary artists who are compelled to keep doing her movement and preserve her choreography, though it seems to be quite outdated.
One of the offspring of Isadora, one of her reincarnations is the founder and artistic director of “Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation” Lori Belilove. Through Lori’s life and work, through the art of her students and company members, through the lines of a theatrical play conceived by Lori, the image and entire persona of Isadora Duncan comes alive.
Through her dancing Belilove makes Isadora Duncan’s great choreography seem eternally fresh.
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Fearless
Writers, Directors, Producers: Rob George & Mark Poole
Runtime: 54 minutes
Country: Australia
Language: English
Julia Britton is about to fly to London for the opening of her new play, and her daughter Stephanie is very worried. Julia is 92 and while she’s sprightly and sharp, she has diabetes, hearing loss and a thyroid condition. The risks are enormous.
Working with the play’s director, Robert Chuter, and his friend Chris, Julia pushes ahead with her plans. The play, "Fresh Pleasures", stars actor Tamblyn Lord as the gay Bloomsbury set artist Duncan Grant.
The pressure is on, and Julia and Robert clash repeatedly. The two have a symbiotic relationship; Robert produces her plays and Julia provides the finances; but even for this resourceful pair the London trip seems a stretch.
Julia has never been one to shrink from controversy. The production of her adaptation of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” was fearlessly erotic, and there were attempts to have it banned.
Julia began writing after her husband’s death, at the age of 75. Robert Chuter moved into her home when short of a place to stay, and he has lived there ever since. His friend Chris lives there too.
When Julia arrives in London a week before opening night, tempers begin to fray. The theatre is not as she expected, and Julia has to find additional money for extra lights. Robert has organized a season of another play, “Homme Fatale” onto the end of Julia's season, and she's furious, although she won't admit it on camera.
Opening Night arrives, and Julia nearly misses the performance after a misunderstanding about London cabs. The play goes well, although reviews are mixed, as is the box office. It's tough to take the British theatre scene by storm.
But Julia and Robert are undeterred; they're already scheming up their next attempt to conquer the British theatre scene. Will they succeed? Who knows. One thing's for certain, Julia's determination knows no bounds.
Whatever the success of her plays, Julia Britton remains an inspiration, as we see when she visits her old school in Manchester and provides a few tips on living to a group of 13 year olds.
FEARLESS tells the story of an inspirational journey that explores an extraordinarily productive life, and a bizarre relationship with Robert Chuter.
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Rash
Producer, Director, Writer, Camera, Editor: Nicholas Hansen
Duration: 73 Mins
RASH is a contemporary story of modern urban Australia and artists making it a living host for illegal artwork called ‘street art’. This film explores the cultural value of unsanctioned public art, and graffiti’s contribution to a very public dialogue.
RASH conveys the commitment, ideals and beliefs demonstrated in a thriving alternative art practice. These artists bang away at the community conscience by sticking this artwork right in the public eye. The spirit of rebellion is being channelled into street art and these visual conversations are spreading across the walls of Melbourne. RASH offers a rare insight into graffiti artists’ world view.
Melbourne has become an attractive place for both local and visiting graffiti artists who arrive from interstate and overseas to leave their mark via bill posters, stencils, and performance to broadcast their under represented views. The 2006 Commonwealth Games present local councils with a juggling act - to present a clean and safe city for visitors. This Is Art and It Belongs!
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Paper Art
Duration: 1 x 30
Available with separate language tracks and English subtitles
Chinese paper cutting is a form of Chinese folk art which uses paper as material and a pair of scissors as the tool. Incredibly beautiful and intricate patterns are often created in a matter of minutes. This is a story of how a folk artist grew to become one of China's famous modern artists - Gon Lin. Through his art, we get a unique view of modern and contemporary Chinese society.
Available for Australia, New Zealand and Latin America only.
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Cloth of the Gods
Duration: 1 x 48
This is the first film ever made on Fijian masi or tapa cloth. It shows the harvesting of the trees and the treatment of the bark, dyeing, designing and stencilling. CLOTH OF THE GODS also demonstrates the significant part played by masi cloth in the traditional life of Fiji, its religion, its ceremonies and rituals. We interview crafts people who are committed to preserving this ancient art form.
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