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Zydeco, Godard, Inuit Throat Singer Tanya Tagaq, Klimt & Koons: The Final Culture Vulture Films of 2023.

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We have finished programming Culture Vulture, our long-running weekly film series of fine art, theater, opera, music and more, for the rest of the year. Have a look! The screenings are every Monday evening and Tuesday matinee at the Laemmle Claremont, Glendale and Monica Film Center. After a hiatus over the holidays, we’ll bring the series back in 2024, likely with additional screening days and venues. Nice! More opportunities to apply the balm of beauty against the burn of our harsh world. Keep an eye on our social media and weekly newsletter for updates.

November 6-7: Klimt & the Kiss: The Kiss by Gustav Klimt is one of the most recognized and reproduced paintings in the world. It is perhaps the most popular poster on student dorm walls from Beijing to Boston. Painted in Vienna around 1908, the evocative image of an unknown couple embracing has captivated viewers with its mystery, sensuality and dazzling materials ever since it was created. But just what lies behind the appeal of the painting – and just who was the artist that created it?

November 13-14: I Went to the Dance: The seminal film on the history of the foot-stomping, toe-tapping music of French Southwest Louisiana. Features many Cajun and Zydeco greats, Michael Doucet, BeauSoleil, Clifton Chenier, Canray Fontenont, Marc and Ann Savoy, D.L. Menard.

November 20-21: Jeff Koons: A Private Portrait: This is not just a documentary but an amazing journey inside the mind of the most controversial artist of our time. Jeff Koons is widely regarded as one of the most influential, popular and disputed artists of the last 30 years. This film shows the hidden mechanisms lying behind the person, the artist and the Koons brand. It’s an intimate exploration of Jeff Koons’ consciousness, aiming to discover what motivates him and shapes his incomparable vision.

November 27-28: Recordially Yours, Lou Curtiss: Yale Strom explores the life and work of Lou Curtiss – creator of the San Diego Folk Festival, audiophile, folklorist, author, raconteur, radio host and proprietor of Folk Arts Rare Records, a mecca for some of the most celebrated American roots musicians in America (Jack Tempchin, Jason Mraz, Tom Brousseau, A.J. Croce, George Winston, Sue Palmer, Alison Brown, Tomcat Courtney, Tom Waits, Gregory Page, Mike Seeger and many others). Archival footage, live interviews and music tell the story of this American icon.

December 4-5: Titanic: The Musical: Five-time Tony Award winner Titanic: The Musical is ‘breathtaking’ (The Guardian) and ‘magnificent’ (The Telegraph). A stunning and stirring production recounting the hopes, dreams and aspirations of her passengers, from the wealthy first class to the third class dreaming of a new life in America.

December 11-12: Ever Deadly weaves together intimate concert footage of Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq alongside moving personal reflections, stunning sequences filmed in Nunavut, and hand-drawn animation by Inuk artist Shuvinai Ashoona to seamlessly bridge history, landscapes, stories, and songs with pain, anger, and triumph – all through the expressions of one of the most innovative musical performers of our time.

December 15-21 at the Royal, December 18-19 at the Claremont, Glendale and Monica Film Center: Godard Cinema with Trailers of the Film that Will Never Exist: ‘Phony Wars’: Jean-Luc Godard is synonymous with cinema. With the release of Breathless in 1960, he established himself overnight as a cinematic rebel and symbol for the era’s progressive and anti-war youth. Sixty-two years and 140 films later, Godard is among the most renowned artists of all time, taught in every film school yet still shrouded in mystery. One of the founders of the French New Wave, political agitator, revolutionary misanthrope, film theorist and critic, the list of his descriptors goes on and on. Godard Cinema offers an opportunity for film lovers to look back at his career and the subjects and themes that obsessed him, while paying tribute to the ineffable essence of the most revered French director of all time.

We’ll screen Godard Cinema with Godard’s final work, Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: ‘Phony Wars.’ At the time of his death in September 2022, Jean-Luc Godard had been in the midst of planning another feature, an adaptation of Belgian author Charles Plisnier’s 1937 novel Faux Passports. Though the film was never produced, the intricate and beautiful “trailer” that Godard put together in preparation now stands as his final work, a complex collage of history, politics, and cinema constructed of paper and glue, paintings and photographs, sound and silence.

Godard often transformed his synopses into aesthetic programs. His swan song follows in this tradition and will remain as the ultimate gesture of cinema, which he accompanies with the following text: “Rejecting the billions of alphabetic diktats to liberate the incessant metamorphoses and metaphors of a necessary and true language by returning to the locations of past film shoots, while keeping track of modern times.”

VERMEER: THE GREATEST EXHIBITION at the Claremont, Glendale & Monica Film Center May 15 & 16.

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Even if you have the time and money to visit Amsterdam and see the Rijksmuseum’s historic, never-to-be-repeated Vermeer exhibition before it closes on June 4, tickets sold out within hours of being made available last year. However, a good plan B is available next Monday and Tuesday in nearby Claremont, Glendale and Santa Monica: Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition. (We’ll also be screening Close to Vermeer on July 17 and 18 at the same venues. It’s also about the Rijksmuseum show.)

From Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition producer and co-writer Phil Grabsky: “If there is one exhibition that I have been asked about more than any other to inquire whether we filmed it for Exhibition on Screen, it is the 1995 Vermeer exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. My Exhibition on Screen brand did not germinate in my mind until 2009 and the first film, Leonardo from the National Gallery, did not emerge until 2011
so, no, we didn’t capture that 1995 show.

VERMEER: THE GREATEST EXHIBITION at the Claremont, Glendale & Monica Film Center May 15 & 16.

“Since then we have made two films with a Vermeer theme: one specifically on Girl with a Pearl Earring and its wonderful home, the Mauritshaus in The Hague, and the second film Vermeer & Music based on a very fine exhibition at the National Gallery in London. But when I heard that the Rijksmuseum was planning the greatest Vermeer exhibition in history, I
knew that the Exhibition on Screen cameras had to be there.

VERMEER: THE GREATEST EXHIBITION at the Claremont, Glendale & Monica Film Center May 15 & 16.

“We weren’t alone in requesting access to show, but we’ve worked at the Rijksmuseum before and they trust us – and, I think, like us. Thus it was, on the eve of the opening, we the team (led by director David Bickerstaff) found ourselves in the enormously privileged position of having the galleries to ourselves to film in. We were given the time to interview the key
participants as well as one of the United Kingdom’s leading art historians. I knew from the minute that I saw this exhibition it was something special but even I was amazed that all tickets sold out within hours for the entire three month run. That only confirms how important it is that as often as we can Exhibition on Screen captures, for posterity, not only the huge efforts of those who put on a show like this but also the way that the art looks when hung together in this way.

“We can only do this if you keep coming to the cinema and spread the word about Exhibition on Screen to your friends and colleagues. Please visit our website for more background clips, etc and lots of offers and goodies. I hope you enjoy the film.”

Culture Vulture 2023 starts off strong in Glendale, Newhall and Santa Monica with Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux.

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Happy New Year! We’re welcoming 2023 with five powerful titles in our long-running Culture Vulture series: The Super 8 Years; Children of the Mist; Filmmakers for the Prosecution screening with Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today; and Geographies of Solitude.

The Super 8 Years, January 23 & 24: One of France’s most respected contemporary writers, 2022 Nobel Prize laureate Annie Ernaux’s intimate and autobiographical body of work captures the inner lives of women alongside societal and cultural changes in France from the 1960s onwards. A natural extension of her literary work in its form and content, The Super 8 Years shows the pastimes, lifestyle and aspirations of a social class in post-1960s France through the lens of the Ernaux family archive. Read Manohla Dargis’ rave review in the New York Times: “The film’s images have faded, but the memories they’ve stirred up are vivid and full of feeling…short, potent, quietly elegiac.”

Children of the Mist, January 30 & 31: In a village hidden in the mist-shrouded Northwest Vietnamese mountains resides an indigenous Hmong community, home to 12-year-old Di, part of the first generation of her people with access to formal education. A free spirit, Di happily recounts her experiences to Vietnamese filmmaker Diễm Hà Lệ, who planted herself within Di’s family over the course of three years to document this unique coming of age. “Diem’s intimate access and sensitive approach, together with editor Swann Dubus’ keen eye for texture and detail, make for a compelling and eye-opening drama.” ~ Nikki Baughan, Screen Daily

Filmmakers for the Prosecution screening with Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today, February 6 & 7: Filmmakers: Near the end of WWII, filmmaker John Ford, head of the Field Photographic Branch of the OSS, assigns the Schulberg brothers to carry out a special mission: track down German footage and photographs of Nazi atrocities in order to convict the leaders scheduled to stand trial. Nuremberg: One of the greatest courtroom dramas in history, the film shows how prosecutors built their case against Nazi war criminals using their own films and records. “Haunting and vivid. What this documentary shows is how a vital and indispensable principle of humanity was restored.” [on Nuremberg] – A. O. Scott,  New York Times

Culture Vulture 2023 starts off strong in Glendale, Newhall and Santa Monica with Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux.
From ‘Filmmakers for the Prosecution.’

Geographies of Solitude, February 13 & 14: An immersion into the rich ecosystem of Sable Island, a remote sliver of land in the Northwest Atlantic, the film follows Zoe Lucas, a naturalist and environmentalist who has lived there for over 40 years collecting, cleaning and documenting marine litter that persistently washes up on the island’s shores. Shot on 16mm and created using eco-friendly filmmaking techniques, Geographies of Solitude is a playful and reverent collaboration with the natural world filled with arresting images and made with an activist spirit. “A work of art.” – Marc Glassman, POV Magazine “A beguiling and poetic film.” – Wendy Ide, Screen Daily

Culture Vulture 2023 starts off strong in Glendale, Newhall and Santa Monica with Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux.
From ‘Geographies of Solitude.’

Tickets for all the films are now on sale. Couple changes: west side Culture Vulture screenings are now at the Monica Film Center instead of the Royal and the Monday screenings will start at 7 PM instead of 7:30 PM. Also screening at our Glendale and Santa Clarita theaters.

Rejuvenate your spirit with Spring 2022 Culture Vulture films.

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We began our weekly Culture Vulture series in 2014 to showcase the best films from and about the world of dance, opera, plays, musicals, fine art and more. We screen them every Monday at 7:30 PM at the Playhouse 7, Royal, Newhall, Claremont 5, and Glendale. Can’t make it on Mondays? No problem! Catch discounted encore presentations Tuesdays at 1 PM. Our schedule through May:

April 11-12: The beautifully crafted Easter in Art explores the Easter story as depicted in art, from the time of the early Christians to the present day. Shot on location in Jerusalem, United States and throughout Europe, the film explores the different ways artists have depicted the Easter story through the ages and thus depicts the history of us all.

April 18-19: Raphael: The Young Prodigy tells the story of the Italian Renaissance artist, starting from his extraordinary portraits of women – the Mother, the Friend, the Secret Lover and the Client. From portraits of his mother, who died when the painter was only eight, to the female admirers who helped him on his road to success, Raphael was able to portray an ideal of celestial beauty and focus his gaze more on the psychology of his subjects than on their physical forms, so that their personalities emerge in a striking manner.

April 25-26: In Black Flowers, five Holocaust survivors choose art as a vehicle for healing the wounds of their past. An undeniable bond is visible between the horrors they experienced and the artistic expression they find. The necessity of optimism is eminent in the personalities of these survivors. Screening with Commandment 613, in which Rabbi Kevin Hale joyfully practices the sacred craft of Torah restoration, bringing new life to scrolls saved in Czechoslovakia during the Shoah. Black Flowers filmmaker Tammy Federman will participate in Q&As following the April 25th screening at the Royal and the matinee screening at the Playhouse on the 26th.

May 2-3: Gallant Indies features 30 dancers of hip-hop, krump, break-dancing, and voguing. It’s a first for the Director Clément Cogitore, the choreographer Bintou Dembélé, and the Paris’ Opera Bastille. By bringing together urban dance and opera singing, they reinvent Jean-Philippe Rameau’s baroque masterpiece, Les Indes Galantes. From rehearsals to public performances, it is a human adventure and a meeting of political realities that we follow: can a new generation of artists storm the Bastille today?

May 9-10: 42nd Street – The Musical ~ One of Broadway’s classics, this production of 42nd Street is the largest-ever production of the breathtaking musical. Set in 1933, it tells the story of Peggy Sawyer, a talented young performer with stars in her eyes who gets her big break on Broadway. Filmed in 2018 at London’s Theatre Royal and directed by the original author of the show, Mark Bramble, this eye-watering extravaganza is full of crowd-pleasing tap dances, popular musical theatre standards (“Lullaby of Broadway,” “We’re in the Money,” “42nd Street” and more), and dazzling ensemble production numbers.

May 16-17: To mark the centenary of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, Tutankhamun: The Last Exhibition offers audiences an extraordinary opportunity to meet the Pharaoh, with exclusive coverage of how 150 of his treasures were moved to become part of the biggest international exhibition ever dedicated to him. Explore a continuous dialogue of cross-references between the ancient past when the Pharaoh was alive, the more recent times which saw the discovery of his tomb by archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922, and the present day with exhibitions and studies dedicated to Ancient Egypt.

May 23-24: Alain Resnais: Five Short Films ~ Five newly restored early short film masterpieces from the legendary filmmaker. 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 developed eye. The films are a remarkable compendium of the stylistic elements found in his features, and represent an important contribution to the distinguished French documentary tradition.

The 2022 Q1 Culture Vulture schedule is here.

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Fine art is healing and considering the pain of the past two years, some palliative movies are in order. We have finalized the January-March schedule for our Culture Vulture series — featuring films about art and artists, opera, dance, stage, classical music and more . See them on the big screen every Monday at 7:30 PM and Tuesday at 1 PM at our Claremont, Glendale, Newhall, Playhouse and Royal theaters. Without further ado:

January 24-25 SO LATE SO SOON
January 31-February 1 SECRET IMPRESSIONISTS
February 7-8 THE NINTH SYMPHONY BY MAURICE BEJART
February 14-15 MAVERICK MODIGLIANI
February 21-22 no Culture Vulture screenings (Presidents’ Day)
February 28-3/1 ROMEO AND JULIET
March 7-8 NAPOLEON: IN THE NAME OF ART
March 14-15 CONCERTO: A BEETHOVEN JOURNEY
March 21-22 FRIDA KAHLO
March 28-29 IN SEARCH OF HAYDN
April 4-5 TBA
April 11-12 EASTER IN ART

Culture Vulture Returns! Tickets Now on Sale.

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Nature is healing and Culture Vulture is back! We will restart the weekly series this month with Monday evening (7:30 PM) and Tuesday matinee (1:00 PM) screenings at our Claremont, Glendale, Newhall, Playhouse and Royal venues. We have something for everyone, including fine art, musical theatre, legitimate theatre, ballet and much more. The schedule, starting with something from London’s West End:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LcGGBrqhS4

09/20 & 09/21 – SKYLIGHT – On a bitterly cold London evening, schoolteacher (Carey Mulligan) receives an unexpected visit from her former lover (Bill Nighy), a successful and charismatic restaurateur whose wife has recently died. David Hare’s highly-anticipated production, directed by Stephen Daldry (The Audience), was recorded live on the West End by National Theatre Live.

https://vimeo.com/580755653/5679f08d86

09/27 & 09/22 – LIVE AT MR. KELLY’S – A look back at the legendary Chicago club Mister Kelly’s, which launched talent like Barbra Streisand, Woody Allen, Bette Midler, and Richard Pryor. Its visionary owners George and Oscar Marienthal smashed color and gender barriers to put fresh, irreverent voices in the spotlight and transform entertainment in the 50s, 60s, and ’70s.

https://vimeo.com/583451750

10/04 & 10/11 – ALGREN – A journey through the gritty world, brilliant mind, and noble heart of Nelson Algren, the writer who defined post-war American urban fiction. Featuring John Sayles, William Friedkin, Philip Kaufman, Billy Corgan and more, the film paints an intimate, witty portrait.

https://vimeo.com/thefaithful/trailer

10/11 & 10/12 – THE FAITHFUL – This documentary powerfully explores fandom, memorabilia and the magnetic appeal of three of the most influential cultural icons of our time: Elvis Presley, Princess Diana, and Pope John Paul II.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwnUJmFBhs4

10/18 & 10/19 – RAPHAEL REVEALED – Marking the 500th anniversary of Raphael’s death, the greatest exhibition ever held of his works took place in Rome. This film provides beautifully-filmed access to this once-in-a-lifetime show featuring over two hundred masterpieces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st6F5QZWJSY

10/25 & 10/25 – FOLLIES – New York, 1971. There’s a party on the stage of the Weismann Theatre. Tomorrow the iconic building will be demolished. Thirty years after their final performance, the Follies girls gather to have a few drinks, sing a few songs and lie about themselves. After a sold-out run in 2017, the winner of the Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival returned for a strictly limited season in 2019. Stephen Sondheim’s legendary musical includes such classic songs as Broadway Baby, I’m Still Here and Losing My Mind.

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/putinswitnes/585517424

11/01 & 11/02 – PUTIN’S WITNESSES serves as a fascinating look at Putin in the earliest days of his presidency, when the seeds of his authoritarianism were already being sown, filmed by a former friend and colleague, now living in exile, who had intimate access.

https://vimeo.com/582143536

11/08 & 11/09 – PRISM – Filmmakers Eléonore Yameogo of Burkina Faso, An van. Dienderen of Belgium, and Rosine Mbakam of Cameroon examine biases and racism in the cinematic technology, deconstructing the camera’s objectivity, exposing its inherent power imbalance. At the same time, they work together collaboratively to construct and reconstruct. Like a chain letter, PRISM brings interviews, monologues, and images on the racism of cinematic technology into emotional, aesthetic, and intellectual dialogue.

https://vimeo.com/545187506

11/15 & 11/16 – DELPHINE’S PRAYERS – A portrait of a Cameroonian immigrant to Belgium. Quick-witted, engaging, passionate, and intense, she shares her incredible survival story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6I-r4oLHIY

11/22 & 11/23 – M.C. ESCHER: JOURNEY TO INFINITY – Equal parts history, psychology, and psychedelia, Robin Lutz’s entertaining, eye-opening portrait gives us the famous Dutch graphic artist through his own words and images: diary musings, excerpts from lectures, correspondence and more are voiced by British actor Stephen Fry, while Escher’s woodcuts, lithographs, and other print works appear in both original and playfully altered form.

Culture Vulture Returns! Tickets Now on Sale.11/29 & 11/30 – SPARTACUS – Huge in scale and spectacular in effect, SPARTACUS is a true tour de force of a ballet, set to Aram Khachaturian’s superb score. With an incredible display of might from the four leading dancers to the entire corps de ballet and its passionate pas de deux, it is the ultimate spectacle of virtuosity and lyricism born at the Bolshoi Theatre.

Culture Vulture Returns! Tickets Now on Sale.

12/06 & 12/07 – THE DANISH COLLECTOR: DELACROIX TO GAUGUIN – Denmark’s Ordrupgaard Collection is a treasure trove featuring some of the finest Impressionist works ever painted. Includes Realist paintings by Corot, Delacroix and Courbet; landscapes of Monet, Pissarro, Cézanne and Sisley; and beautifully observed portraits by Degas, Manet, Morisot, and Gonzalès.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJdet3cdKro&feature=emb_title

12/13 & 12/14 – LOUIS VAN BEETHOVEN – This lavish historical drama illuminates the story of the world-famous composer from different perspectives.

Culture Vulture 2020 Commences.

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Begin the new year and the new decade by taking in some of the esoteric cinema of our Culture Vulture series, now entering its seventh year.

January 13 & 14 ~ THE PRADO MUSEUM: A COLLECTION OF WONDERS celebrates the 200th anniversary of the storied Prado Museum — one of the most-visited museums in the world.  Hosted by Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons, this cinematic journey offers viewers a spell-binding experience, telling the story of Spain and beyond, through the works of Vélazquez, Rubens, Titian, Mantegna, Bosch, Goya, El Greco, and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSIvsf5-COg

 

AFTERWARD January 20 & 21 ~ Jerusalem-born trauma expert Ofra Bloch forces herself to confront her demons in a journey that takes her to Germany, Israel and Palestine. Set against the current wave of fascism and anti-Semitism sweeping the globe, AFTERWARD delves into the secret wounds carried by victims as well as victimizers, through testimonies ranging from the horrifying to the hopeful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSw1jeyE6NI

 

GAUGUIN FROM THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON January 27 & 28 ~ This fascinating new cinema event, Gauguin from the National Gallery, London, opens with a brand-new documentary about the life and work of Paul Gauguin, one of the world’s most popular and important artists. Filmed in Tahiti, France, the Marquesas Islands and the UK, this cinematic film explores Gauguin’s extraordinary – and at times controversial – artistic achievement, with commentary from his descendants, artists and world experts. It is followed by an exclusive private view of the National Gallery exhibition, The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Gauguin Portraits.

https://vimeo.com/365857943?utm_source=Full+Exhibitor+List&utm_campaign=0f6f2c4ca5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_11_19_04_37&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_11aeb814de-0f6f2c4ca5-216267177

 

IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN February 3 & 4 ~ The makers of IN SEARCH OF MOZART return with a new feature-length bio-doc about Beethoven. Director Phil Grabsky brings together the world’s leading performers and experts on Beethoven to reveal new insights into the legendary composer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAkWBMdoBrQ

 

February 10 & 11 ~ EARTH was filmed at seven locations that humans have transformed on a grand scale: Entire mountains being moved in California; a tunnel being sliced through rock at the Brenner Pass; an open-cast mine in Hungary; a marble quarry in Italy; a copper mine in Spain; the salt mine used to store radioactive waste in Wolfenbüttel; and a tar sands landscape in Canada. Initially shown from above as abstract paintings, these terrains are subsequently explored on the ground: The film weaves together observational footage of machines in operation with conversations with the workers.

February 17 & 18 ~ MATTHEW BOURNE’S ROMEO + JULIET has been hailed as ‘the single most eagerly awaited dance show for 2019’ by The Daily Telegraph. This passionate and contemporary re-imagining of Shakespeare’s classic story of love and conflict is set in the not-too-distant future in ‘The Verona Institute.’ Here ‘difficult’ young people are mysteriously confined by a society that seeks to divide and crush their youthful spirit and individuality. Our two young lovers must follow their hearts as they risk everything to be together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsSFV8B4CI4

 

February 24 & 25 ~ GISELLE touches upon great and universal romantic themes. In this brand new production, renowned choreographer Alexei Ratmansky brings a fresh perspective to one of the oldest and greatest works of classical dance, giving the audience an opportunity to discover this iconic ballet anew.

Masters of El Prado: A Collection of Documentaries about the Most Renowned Artists from Museo del Prado.

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Take a trip to Spain this summer and see Bosch, Sorolla and Murillo on the big screen as part of our Culture Vulture series at the Claremont, Playhouse, Royal, and Town Center.

MURILLO: THE LAST JOURNEY is more than a documentary about one of the greatest geniuses of fine art. It provides a view at the history of the Spanish empire at its height from the perspective of one of Murillo’s most iconic paintings: The Young Peddler. The painting travels from Seville to Paris as world-renowned specialists flesh out the exquisite aesthetics of the painter’s most sublime masterpieces. We’ll screen this August 5 and 6.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V-q9mv6jig

 

BOSCH: THE GARDEN OF DREAMS, screening August 12 and 13, was produced by LópezLiFilms and the Prado Museum, which this year commemorates the fifth centenary of the painter’s death with a major exhibition entitled “Bosch. The Centenary Exhibition.”

Under the direction of Jose Luis Lopez Linares, the film focuses on the most important work of the painter and one of the most iconic in the world: ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights.’ The feature presents a conversation among artists, writers, philosophers, musicians and scientists, regarding the personal, historical and artistic significance of the picture, bringing back a conversation that was started 500 years ago in the court of the Dukes of Nassau (Brussels), when it is believed that the painting was commissioned to Bosch.

We have very little information about the artist’s identity and biography, something that helps feed the enigma of the hidden meaning in his works. As Falkenburg, narrator of the documentary and debate moderator with all participants says, “At the end of the novel, the writer reveals the mystery. In this case, the author does not want you to solve the mystery. He wants you to stay in it.”

BOSCH: THE GARDEN OF DREAMS is the only film about the author’s most important masterpiece: “The garden of earthly delights” and the only one with full access to the mysteries hidden in it.

https://vimeo.com/161909645

 

SOROLLA: THE NATURAL EMOTION is the result of the documentary record of the first great anthological exhibition that the Prado Museum dedicated to the great master of the 19th century and the most important held inside and outside of Spain: Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923); it’s a culmination of the itinerancy in Spain of the fourteen panels of the Vision of Spain, commissioned by the Hispanic Society of America, which the Bancaja Foundation brought to Spain in 2007. This spectacular set constitutes the most magnificent decorative project of Sorolla’s fecund career, in addition of the true epilogue and synthesis of all its production.

The representation of the light, the beauty of his pastel brushstrokes, the love of his native land as well as the relationship with his family and many other issues, are explored by experts in the field, creating a production where the figure of of Sorolla is exalted and revealed.

Producer López Linares comments that “it was a great discovery that there were so many photos of Sorolla, suddenly we had an incredible photographic archive, with magnificent photos of him painting, when he was older, on the beach, family photos … It was all very well documented. It’s a pleasant surprise for the documentary to find you with this photographic richness, it’s wonderful.”

 

https://vimeo.com/346822352