Acting
In 2017, Cornelia Parker became the UK’s first female official Election Artist. She followed the campaigns with daily observations in over 1,500 images and films on her Instagram feed, which turned into Election Abstract.
Get up close to artists, writers, actors, comedians and poets – and discover both what fires their imaginations and the forces that have shaped their extraordinary lives.
FLAG is filmed in a factory in Cardiff that makes Union Jacks. “We filmed them making one from beginning to end and then we run it backwards. They take the flag apart piece by piece, as the hymn Jerusalem plays in the background. I suppose it’s sympathetic magic – to stop the Union Jack getting dismembered into four countries following Brexit.”
The four-channel projection American Gothic, shot on iPhones in New York in October 2016, focuses on the street Halloween celebrations and a rally outside Trump Tower a few days before Donald Trump’s election.
War Machine shows the production of Remembrance Day poppies in a slow reveal, the mechanical process reminiscent of old film reels.
Made in Bethlehem is a subtle response to the complexities of politics in the Middle East. On a visit to Palestine just before Easter in 2012, Parker filmed a Muslim man, Muhammad Hussein Ba-our and his son weaving crowns of thorns for Christian pilgrims.
Left, Right and Centre shows the interior of the House of Commons during the 2017 election campaign. Newspapers are piled on the benches and blow around the chamber when they are caught in an unexpected breeze. Headlines charting polarised opinions across the political spectrum are seen clashing and scattering amid the general mess and chaos. The work was filmed in darkness at night and in daylight the following day, using two cameras, a drone and a wind machine. One camera acts as passive observer and the other (on the drone) acts as an agitator that disrupts the familiar space.
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the surreal art movement, comedian Jim Moir (a.k.a. Vic Reeves) presents this documentary exploring the history of Dadism and the lasting influence it has had on himself and others.
A spotlight tracks around a statue of Margaret Thatcher that stands in the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. The light casts the elongated and enlarged shadow of the ex-prime minister’s arm and pointing finger on the walls about it.
Shining a light on the trailblazing role of women war artists, on the front lines round the world, championing the female perspective on conflict through art and asking: when it's life or death, what do women see that men don't?
Imagine reveals the darker side of one of Britain's most original and inventive artists. A sculptor working with found materials, Cornelia Parker creates beauty from acts of brutality - an exploded shed, piles of squashed silver, the charred remnants of a burnt church suspended in time. Born in 1956 to a German mother and an English father in rural Cheshire, Parker always struggled to fit in. Art was her escape. In 2016 she embarked on the most high-profile commission of her career - the roof of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. This film follows Parker's creative process, as she delves deep into American history and culture - and her own personal past.
JMW Turner's paintings are world famous, but what if they're not what they seem? This revealing documentary film could change the way we interpret some of Turner's most familiar works as two plucky enthusiasts, joined by art historians and academics, reveal the startling hidden codes they believe are woven into his paintings. Follow their Da Vinci Code-esque quest as they delve into the unseen images which have been staring out from their frames for centuries.
