Already an established painter whose work had been previously featured as album covers for Genesis, British artist Paul Whitehead decided to expand his portfolio by exploring his own personality. Whitehead’s personal journey led him towards drag, and resulting in the artist developing a transfluid alter ego, Tricia Van Cleef.
Céline Sciamma’s highly acclaimed drama Portrait of a Lady on Fire is visceral filmmaking at its most eloquent. So much of this period piece hinges on textures, sights, and sounds to make the audience believe that we’re living through someone’s romantic memories.
Kevin Hearn, keyboardist for The Barenaked Ladies and an avid art collector, accidentally opened a can of worms by purchasing a painting by late indigenous artist Norval Morrisseau. During an exhibit of Hearn’s curated pieces at the Art Gallery of Ontario, his Morrisseau was proven to be bogus. This pivotal event (which also led to a lengthy court case) pulled a thread, unravelling conflicting opinions surrounding a remarkable mystery behind Morrisseau’s work.
Almost Almost Famous is high energy and often kind of cheesy – much like the performers it follows. While the film certainly isn’t terrible and there are a handful of moments that feel honest and genuine, this is a documentary that never quite manages to find its footing.
The central question at the core of Nathaniel Kahn’s The Price of Everything is how importantly, or inherently, is money connected to art? The answer reveals itself through the understanding of artists, historians and dealers, with that importance going higher as monetary power does. In other words, this documentary ultimately makes two points: art is inherently financial, and capitalism will slowly but surely cause the demise of it.
The late Andrzej Wajda tells a story of artistic integrity in Afterimage, a biopic about Polish avant-garde painter Wladyslaw Strzeminski.
The animation featured in Keiichi Hara’s anime Miss Hokusai is terrific. A single cell has the ability to represent the humility and emotion of its characters, along with the imagination the film can achieve. What’s peculiar and disappointing is how these images don’t make a cohesive film when edited together.
Victor Kanefsky’s Art Bastard asks broad questions about the relationship between art and politics. Its subject, American artist Robert Cenedella, serves a micro-answer to some of these broad questions. Although Kanefsky is successful in arguing for Cenedella’s work as critical satirical representations of U.S. political culture, the film lacks energy.
By: Addison Wylie Many will recognize Max Joseph from his co-hosting gig on MTV’s Catfish, a modern mystery program featuring Max and Nev Schulman helping online romantics track down their ambiguous lovers. Faithful viewers of Catfish, however, were given episodes early on in season 4 that were absent of Joseph. This was because the filmmaker was still busy working on his feature film debut, We Are Your Friends. We Are Your Friends followed a group of pals trying…
The Amina Profile (DIR. Sophie Deraspe) By: Trevor Jeffery The Amina Profile is three stories in one: a three-part politically charged long-distance romance with a twist; a bit of Going the Distance meets a bit of Milk, with a lot of Catfish. It’s a story of civil unrest under a dictatorship told through a somber love story: two women meant for each other, with half a world between them – Sandra in Montreal and Amina in Damascus. Six…