Keyword Artists Life

In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the Stasi secret police, conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives.

Loosely based on the Charles Dickens' classic novel, "Great Expectations" is a sensual tale of a young man's unforgettable passage into manhood, and the three individuals who will undeniably change his life forever. Through the surprising interactions of these vivid characters, "Great Expectations" takes a unique and contemporary look at life's great coincidences.

The Catholic Church secretly investigates Caravaggio as the Pope weighs whether to grant him clemency for killing a rival.

Sanju explores some of the most crucial chapters from movie star Sanjay Dutt’s dramatic and controversial real life. It gives a lowdown on his tryst with drugs and his trials and tribulations in the Arms Acts case and the 1993 Mumbai blasts.

In a time of political and social unrest in 19th century Korea, uncouth, self-taught painter Jang Seung-up explores his natural talent amidst the repressive world around him.

In the 1960s, British painter Francis Bacon surprises a burglar and invites him to share his bed. The burglar, a working class man named George Dyer, accepts. After the unique beginning to their love affair, the well-connected and volatile artist assimilates Dyer into his circle of eccentric friends, as Dyer's struggle with addiction strains their bond.

The story of the Black queer origins of rock n' roll. It explodes the whitewashed canon of American pop music to reveal the innovator – the originator – Richard Penniman. Through a wealth of archive and performance that brings us into Richard's complicated inner world, the film unspools the icon's life story with all its switchbacks and contradictions.

Documents the writing, recording and performing of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ sixteenth studio album, Skeleton Tree.

A painter recounts the life of Michelangelo.

Composed of numerous archives and film clips, this documentary is the story of a transgressive actor, a pirate who came to crack America's too perfect mask to reveal its most infantile and moronic face, right in the heart of the Hollywood system.

Leonardo da Vinci is not just the most famous and most admired of all painters - he is an icon, a superstar. Yet, the man himself remains elusive. Accounts during his lifetime describe a man too handsome, too strong, too perfect to be accurate. But in 2009, the chance discovery in the South of Italy of an ancient portrait with strangely familiar features takes the art world by storm. Could this be an unknown self-portrait by Leonardo da Vinci? Controversy erupts among the experts. The implications of such a discovery have far-reaching consequences for our understanding of the work of this great Renaissance master.

2020 marks 100 years since the birth of Federico Fellini, the most prominent Italian director and one of the symbols of the insuperable cinematic heyday of mid-20th century. Fellini had always been a mysterious director, not only in his cryptic symbolism but also in his idiosyncratic, excessive mixture of psychoanalysis, Catholicism and faith in the mysterious. In this documentary, his relationship with the paranormal, luck and fate, alongside the coexistence of organized discourse and transcendence to the imaginary, is examined via friends, collaborators and distinguished fans (Friedkin, Gilliam, Chazelle). A great testimony to why rationalists and ideologists have a hard time with his work, ‘Fellini and the Spirits’ is an appropriate yet unexpected tribute.

Documentary about the film and theater career of the roman actor, Gigi Proietti, who passed away on 2 November 2020

This documentary recounts the life and work of one of most famous, and yet reviled, German film directors in history, Leni Riefenstahl. The film recounts the rise of her career from a dancer, to a movie actor to the most important film director in Nazi Germany who directed such famous propaganda films as Triumph of the Will and Olympiad. The film also explores her later activities after Nazi Germany's defeat in 1945 and her disgrace for being so associated with it which includes her amazingly active life over the age of 90.

THE STORY WON’T DIE, from Award-winning filmmaker David Henry Gerson, is an inspiring, timely look at a young generation of Syrian artists who use their work to protest and process what is currently the world’s largest and longest ongoing displacement of people since WWII. The film is produced by Sundance Award-winner Odessa Rae (Navalny). Rapper Abu Hajar, together with other creative personalities of the Syrian uprising, a post-Rock musician (Anas Maghrebi), members of the first all-female Syrian rock band (Bahila Hijazi + Lynn Mayya), break-dancer (Bboy Shadow), choreographer (Medhat Aldaabal), and visual artists (Tammam Azzam, Omar Imam + Diala Brisly), use their art to rise in revolution and endure in exile in this new documentary reflecting on a battle for peace, justice and freedom of expression. It is an uplifting and humanizing look at what it means to be a refugee in today’s world and offers inspiring and hopeful vantages on a creative response to the chaos of war.

The tumultuous and adventurous life of Michelangelo Merisi, controversial artist, called by Fate to become the immortal Caravaggio. A violent genius that will dare to defy the ideal vision of the world imposed by the Renaissance painters. A provoker that scandalized patrons and institutions, raising the altars the outcast figures he knew so well: drunkards, vagrants and prostitutes.

Emotionally scarred by a string of unsuccessful relationships, artist Marilyn Ross has her guard up when it comes to men. While she's reluctant to embark on a new romance, she also can't deny the attraction she feels upon meeting recent divorcee Rodney Porter. As sparks fly and Marilyn finds herself experiencing sexual bliss, she also feels conflicted about giving up her hard-won independence. Does finding the perfect man also mean relinquishing one's self-respect?

When the Cows Come Home introduces audiences to Tilly and Maggie, a pair of cows that musician, journalist, artist and cow whisperer, Andrew Johnstone has befriended and subsequently saved from slaughter. The garrulous herdsman is enthusiastic to expound his views on animal husbandry, bovine communication and the vagaries of life in general, before the film walks us back through the events that have shaped the singular farmer-philosopher. From personal family tragedy to warring with Catholic school authorities, innovating in Hamilton’s nascent music scene to creating guerrilla art installations; Johnstone’s life has had a truly idiosyncratic trajectory. Mental health issues may have seen him retreat to life on the farm, but the film makes clear its subject’s restless inquisitiveness is far from being put out to pasture.

The life and work of New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat have been marked by a long quest for identity, by his Haitian and Puerto Rican family origins and by a founding trip to Africa. To portray this major painter of the 20th century, who died in 1988 at only 27 years old, is also to evoke the place of black American artists in the conservative and racist America of the Reagan years.

Sorata Kanda, a high school sophomore living in Sakurasou, the den of their academy's problem children, spends his days being dragged around by the strange residents, swearing he's going to escape Sakurasou one day.

Artful Penny could indeed draw anything she wanted with her magic crayon and it would spring into life. A fantastically useful toy to have. Only her best friend friend Dennis knew her secret so the two had acres of fun winding up adults, nosey-parkers, bullies, bad guys, teachers and ne'er-do-wells with her creations, or solving problems for folk, or sketching their way out of tricky situations. Penny would scribble away, her arm becoming a blurr as she worked and then - hey presto! - her line drawing would leap off the drawing surface as a fully-formed 3D object.

Great Art Explained is a video series that focuses on one piece of art per episode, breaking it down, using clear and concise language free of 'art-speak'.

A Sky Arts Production Hub docu-series that gives an insight into the relationships between writers, musicians, directors, painters and their muses, from Federico Fellini and Giulietta Masina to Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe.