These short documentaries masterfully capture artistic works on screen while celebrating the imaginative minds behind them.
From a Scottish shipyard welder turned poet to Japanese interactive artist On Megumi Akiyoshi, these short documentaries will introduce you to convention-breaking creatives, their fascinating work spaces, and their sources of inspiration.
Full lineup to be announced soon.
MINING POEMS OR ODES
Director: Callum Rice
2015 / 11 min / United Kingdom
www.scottishdocinstitute.com/films/mining-poems-or-odes/
Robert, an ex-shipyard welder from Govan in Scotland, reflects on how his life experiences have influenced his new found compulsion to write.
YO: LET’S MAKE A BOOK OF THIS
Director: Kristina Budelis and Myles Kane
2013 / 7 min / United States
A few years ago, Yolanda Cuomo, a New York-based artist and graphic designer, learned that she had to vacate her Chelsea studio of twenty-five years. The studio, in an old carriage house in Manhattan, has been the site of artistic collaborations for decades, with artists and photographers from Richard Avedon to Laurie Simmons and Sylvia Plachy, and a team of designers, including Bonnie Briant and Kristi Norgaard.
THE 100 YEARS SHOW
Director: Alison Klayman
2015 / 29 min / United States
www.alisonklayman.com
Carmen Herrera is one of the oldest working artists today. She was a pioneering abstract painter in the ’40s and ’50s, but only recently found the recognition that eluded her for most of her career as she approaches her 100th birthday.
ON BLOOMING ART
Director: Cathryne Czubek
2014 / 6 min / United States
Multi-media artist ON Megumi Akiyoshi transforms the mundane of everyday life. Born in Japan and based in New York City, ON frequently brings her eclectic, and wearable, ON Gallery to the street to interact with the average passerby.
THE REINVENTION OF NORMAL
Director: Liam Saint-Pierre
2015 / 8 min / United Kingdom
http://www.liamsaintpierre.com/
The film follows Dominic Wilcox, an artist / inventor / designer, on his quest for new ideas….Taking the normal and turning it into something unique.
This screening will be preceded by a discussion with author Mariusz Szczygieł, translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones and chaired by Bloomberg News writer Doug Lytle.
The Frontline Club is delighted to partner with Czech Centre London, the Polish Institute and the 13th Kinoteka Polish Film Festival to bring you a screening of Gottland, directed by Viera Cákanyová, Petr Hátle, Rozálie Kohoutová, Lukás Kokes, Radovan Síbrt, and Klára Tasovská. Gottland is a cross-genre film based on selected parts of the international bestseller Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of Czechoslovakia (European Book of the Year 2009) by Mariusz Szczygieł.
After reading his book about their compatriots, a group of young Czech filmmakers approached the Polish author to ask for his thoughts and advice on a film project based on five of the true stories he tells. Szczygieł replied that for a filmmaker, the best author is a dead, or at least a silent one, and that he would prefer to leave them to interpret his stories in their own way. The result is a film in five very different parts, each episode a spin-off from Szczygieł’s originals, rather than a retelling.
This event combines the literary and the cinematic versions. The screening of the Czech film will be preceded by a discussion with Mariusz Szczygieł about the source of inspiration for his moving and at times shocking accounts of the life stories of: the film star who was Goebbels’ mistress; the despotic founder of a shoe-making empire; the sculptor who lost his life creating the world’s biggest monument to Stalin; the writer who reinvented himself for political survival; and the ‘human torch’ who copied Jan Palach’s fateful gesture as recently as 2003.
Born in 1966, Mariusz Szczygieł has been a reporter for Gazeta Wyborcza since 1990. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his writing on Poland and Czechoslovakia, including the Europe Book Prize and the Prix l’Amphi for Gottland. From 1995-2001, he hosted his own talk show (Na każdy temat – ‘On Any Topic’), and he runs the Polish Reportage Institute in Warsaw together with Wojciech Tochman and Paweł Goźliński.
Translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones is the pre-eminent translator of Polish reportage: the authors she has translated include Wojciech Tochman, Wojciech Jagielski, Jacek Hugo-Bader, and Ryszard Kapuscinski. She received the Found in Translation Award from the Polish Cultural Institute in 2008 for her translation of Pawell Huelle’s novel The Last Supper.
This event is organised by the Polish Cultural Institute in London as part of the 13th Kinoteka Polish Film Festival in partnership with Czech Centre London.
Gottland (FILM)
Directed by Lukáš Kokeš, Petr Hátle, Viera Čákanyová, Rozálie Kohoutová, Klára Tasovská, Radovan Síbrt
Duration: 100′
Year: 2014
Czech Republic/Poland/Slovakia
Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of Czechoslovakia (BOOK)
By Mariusz Szczygieł
Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Published by Melville House
Year: 2014
American director Thomas O’Connor weaves Greene’s 50 books and more than 100 of his stories adapted for television, theater and film into the story of his life: torn between good and evil; love and betrayal.
Narrated by Derek Jacobi and with excerpts read by Bill Nighy, Greene’s multi-faceted life is illustrated with historic footage as well as by rich interviews. Included are literary critics and authors such as David Lodge, Shirley Hazzard Paul Theroux and John Le Carre; former CIA Inspector General Frederick P. Hitz; bi-polar expert Dr. Kay Jamison; and the late Sir John Mortimer.
Directed by Thomas O’Connor
Duration: 66′
Year: 2012
"Politics Versus the Personal: Totalitarianism Stamps out Love"
Presented by Borealis Theatre and the Estonian Embassy.
In conjunction with the UK theatre premiere of Purge by Sofi Oksanen at the Arcola Theatre, 22nd February – 24th March, Viv Groskop will lead a dynamic discussion about politics, love and oppression with three influential writers.
]]>"Politics Versus the Personal: Totalitarianism Stamps out Love"
Presented by Borealis Theatre and the Estonian Embassy.
In conjunction with the UK theatre premiere of Purge by Sofi Oksanen at the Arcola Theatre, 22nd February – 24th March, Viv Groskop will lead a dynamic discussion about politics, love and oppression with three influential writers.
Viv Groskop, a British journalist, literary critic and broadcaster. She writes for the Guardian and Observer and appears regularly on Sky News and BBC Radio 4. A contributor to Russian Vogue for ten years, she speaks Russian fluently and her interview subjects include Alexander Litvinenko’s widow Marina, Beslan survivor Fatima Dzgoeva and novelist Ludmilla Petrushevskaya.
Sofi Oksanen, recognised as a potential Nobel prize-winner by the Swedish press, she is an award winning Finnish-Estonian writer actively involved in the public debate in Finland. Her novel Purge is an international best seller and was Sunday Times book of the year 2010. The book was building on the play Purge commissioned by the Finnish National theatre in 2007.
Robert Service, a fellow of the British Academy and of St Antony’s College, Oxford, he has written extensively on the history of Soviet Russia. His many books include the highly acclaimed Lenin: A Biography, Russia: Experiment with a People, Stalin: A Biography and Trotsky: A Biography winner of the Duff Cooper Prize.
Elif Shafak, a truly international writer she blends East and West, feminism and tradition, the local and the global, Sufism and rationalism, creating one of today’s most unique voices in literature. Among her many books you’ll find The Bastard of Istanbul and The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi.
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