Carlotta cannot see faces, not even her own. For her, human faces are no bastion of trust, but places of fear and confusion. Filmmaker and neuroscientist Valentin Riedl travels through Carlotta’s universe, full of anthropomorphic animals, lucid dreams and bumpy false paths. Her never-ending search for answers leads her to art—and thus an avenue to her own face and back to humanity.
In recent years Moscow has emancipated itself to become Russia’s cultural capital – self-confident and critical in confronting its own history and culture, and yet tolerant and open to new things. We introduce the amazingly diverse Moscow cultural scene and explore this latest chapter in the city’s art history.
Young Sergey Tanin from Yakutia resolved early on with all the tenacity of a Siberian to pursue a solo career as a pianist. We show how he succeeds in making the leap from his icy homeland to Moscow and then to Switzerland and get to know a young man who, though far from home, pursues his career with remarkable discipline.
A land where primeval forests meet mountain deserts, with both tropical regions and icy peaks. One of the poorest countries in the world and yet a magical, mystical place, realm of the gods and a spiritual paradise. A journey to discover Nepal’s natural beauty and the people who make their lives in this harsh and remote setting.
In 2013 an oil painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci appears in Lugano: the portrait of Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua. The owner of the painting, Emidia Cecchini, is about to sell it for 140 million euros when Italy accuses her of illegal export. A search for evidence of an alleged art theft.
At the Mosaik art studio in Berlin, artists with disabilities are absorbed in their work. Filmmaker Sabine Herpich observes the artists in the course of creation and directs her gaze at the institution itself: its processes, staff and spaces. The film succeeds in maintaining its focus on the art itself rather than the handicaps of its creators.
From the perspective of his son Jiří Mucha, the film tells the story of Czech artist Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), one of the pioneers of the Art Nouveau movement. Featuring previously unpublished letters and diary entries, the film creates an intense and intimate atmosphere that takes audiences back to Mucha’s world.
It’s the journey of her life: musician Petra Nachtmanova will travel for weeks on the roads from Berlin, through Anatolia, all the way to eastern Iran in search of the origins of her string instrument, which she discovered in Berlin Kreuzberg: the Saz. She will be always asking one question: “Can you teach me a song you think I should bring back home?”
Being an actress in Los Angeles is a demanding job on many levels. We take a look at the “working class” of actresses in L.A., the ones nobody ever sees because they are not (yet) famous. A portrait of five women who show us what it really means to “follow your dreams” and demonstrate that happiness and success are not necessarily related.
Of Polynesia’s once sacred sites, the stone temples, or marae, all that is left today are ruins, often buried under layers of vegetation and long since forgotten. The marae Taputapuatea in French Polynesia was recently declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We explore the secrets of the marae and their significance for Polynesian culture.
America’s history and culture through the lens of the African American experience: that’s the mission of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Since its inauguration in September 2016, the museum has been an overwhelming success. We take a journey through the spectacular building and its exhibitions.
The typographer Hermann Zapf’s career spanned seven decades. He designed over two hundred fonts and created a typographical bridge between the Renaissance and the digital age. He designed the typefaces Optima, Palatino and Zapfino which are installed on every Apple computer today. A film about the lifework of an extraordinary typographer.
