Art Cinema is a production company devoted to crafting and generating high quality cutting-edge and immersive creative content in the fields of film, performing and applied arts as well as publishing.

Collaborating with key institutions, artists, directors and designers worldwide, our approach to concept design, exhibition curation and film making creates a synergy between these media to meet the ever growing and diverse audience demands, whilst fostering an environment for creativity and innovation to flourish.

Founded with rebellious spirit and ambitious objectives, the company strives to create content that informs and inspires, challenges pre-conceptions and stimulate appreciation for art in all its forms of expression, delivered to the highest professional standards.

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iNTERVIEW SERIES BY ART CINEMA

Julie Polidoro, Artist

22nd of May, 2020

‘To live is essentially to live the life of another: to live in and through the life that others have been able to construct or invent.’ Emanuele Coccia, The Life of Plants. A Metaphysics of Mixture

The economy has brutally been subjected to a new priority. Purely and simply: life. We suddenly pay more attention to doctors than to economists.

I now feel that I am an interdependent entity, that I live in symbiosis with the ‘others’ in every sense of the word – other human beings, other species, the wind. I am at one with them and I love this sensation.

The fact that life can perpetuate itself by merging with ‘others’ makes me feel alive.

I suddenly have the same needs, the same schedule as everyone else. I am not ‘a’ plumber, ‘an’ escort girl, ‘a’ sailor anymore. Having to comply with the same restrictions as everyone else, I feel close to all human beings.

During my daily walks, I started watching every single tree I came across, examining how its leaves sprouted a bit more every day. I experienced the passage of time through the growth of plants. I have had to reorganise my time to make this possible.

I now make sure I take breaks when engaged in activities that really matter. I give myself time the same way we let dough rest when baking bread.

I have realised that making things in a hurry is not sexy anymore.

Inevitably, my new project for 2020 is linked to the strange situation we live in. All of a sudden, my problem becomes everyone’s problem. We are all facing a crisis without borders. It is a very strong feeling.

 

This forced pause allowed nature and animals to breath again. I hope this forced pause awakens us to the urgency of protecting ourselves and protecting nature which amounts to the same thing.

I am not only a content in a container. What counts is my interaction with the environment. I cross over space and I merge with the elements.

My new series of paintings is entitled Going out inside (Uscire dentro in Italian, Sortir dedans in French).

The circumstances led me to a provocative gesture. I imagined an outside space which has to be framed under glass to stay outside and uncontaminated.

How to translate formally the act of looking a landscape without standing in front of it, watching it through a window like animals in a zoo ?

What does outside mean? Can the outside become part of the household ?

All of a sudden the landscape is not an external space anymore. It appears to me simply as a space where I feel welcomed, where I can find my place.

And instead of getting rid of the insect crawling on my hand, I look at it.

We are in something with the same intensity and strenght as it is in us.

I wish each of us feels immersed in an outside that is like a home.

Paul Harris, Clarinettist, Composer, Author and Educator

19th of May, 2020

The whole concept of connectedness is so central to thinking, to doing, to being a human being.  Thoughts and actions really only have meaning when they have context. And that context is born of making the appropriate connections. In most human interactions, transient or more permanent, making meaningful connection is essential, whether achieved non-verbally, through body language or facial gesture or verbally through empathetic conversation.  Without meaningful connection we  are no more than objects.  Not individuals.  And we must remember that each individual, given the opportunity, has a view, a take on life, or an angle that might cause our thinking to move in a new (maybe more valuable) direction, or might encourage a deeper insight.

In these times of lockdown, most connections between people have to be virtual, so it’s essential that we try our best to discover the most effective manner in which to make these work.  What we often miss are those subtle, non-verbal signals people are constantly sending out – signals that many  can read instinctively, allowing connection and communication to take place in a subtle, sophisticated and many-layered fashion.  In non-video communication of course you can’t see the person with whom you are communicating; and even with video connections (and the usual attendant problems) we need to rely so much more on what we say.  The precise words we use and our inflection of those words with their (often complex) implications can have such an effect on the person who receives them.  Lockdown has made me so much more conscious of this.

During this time, there has been much online virtual music making, which is wonderful.  So many musicians have recorded and shared their performances. And there has been a vast amount of teaching, which has been successful in varying degrees.  I’m enjoying my online teaching – and have done my first online Inset. I’ve been thinking hard about the strategies we normally use in these activities which need careful adapting to work in the virtual world.

 

But the virtual world is virtual, both in the sense of being both a simulated world and a world that we’re near, we’re virtually in, but not quite. There’s no doubt that it is a wonderful second best – but second best is probably as good as it can ever be.  It doesn’t quite allow us to sense and be affected by the concentration, intensity of thought, and on-going non-verbal signals of communication that make life (in this case, teaching and performing) so powerful and indeed, meaningful.

This interlude has given us the time and opportunity to connect with ourselves – it has allowed us to think inwardly, maybe to re-connect with our core values and passions.  So that when we do eventually reconnect with the real world, we can do so with even more energy and clarity.  There’s no doubt that we will have learned much in this strange but curiously necessary episode in our history.  And I’m sure we shall take the best of it to use in the future. But real connections must ultimately win over those that are virtual.

Virginia Damtsa, Visual Art Dealer and Artist Agent

15th of May, 2020

Our current Covid-19 life has made us introspective in terms of how we wish to continue our daily life and our daily business after this pandemic.

Artists, Galleries, Museums, Art Fairs, Auction Houses and all of us Creatives are waking up to the new reality of how to make virtual and online business viable, as well as friendly and confidential, while still attractive to clients. The idea of re-invention or re-adaptation is making us push boundaries, innovate and also assess the viability of unsustainable practices.

Institutions are already adapting to the ‘new normal’. This week, FRIEZE NEW YORK launches its online viewing room. The fair is bringing us more than 200 international galleries online. There will be live conversations and curator’s highlights of the fair via video platforms.

The OTHER ART FAIR offers online studio visits in London, Los Angeles, Sydney, and Brooklyn. They plan to include online studios from Dallas, Chicago, Melbourne and more.

Auction House Christie’s conducts its ‘online only’ sale; ‘ANDY WARHOL: Better Days’, a selection of Warhol’s photographs and polaroids. Its competitor, Sotheby’s, teams up with Google and leading figures to launch an online auction to fund the International Rescue Committee in response to the spread of Covid-19 in vulnerable communities.

 

Online is not a substitute for the real experience of seeing art in galleries, museums, art fairs and auction houses. If anything it reinforces the need to see the real thing. The popularity of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre is due to its digital online promotion. But then we need to really see it, experience it, to be able to understand it and own it. Real culture is through experience. The experience of visiting an artist’s studio, going to a museum or to a gallery are irreplaceable.

For the moment, ‘Virtual art’ is the new normal norm but we are all longing for a real art experience again.

Rolf Hind, Pianist and Composer, Professor of both and Research Associate at Guidhall Schol of Music and Drama, piano professor at Trinity Laban.

12th of May, 2020

How do you stay connected with your creative constituency these days
All the usual methods I suppose: FB, Twitter, Zoom for meetings and chats.
How has the confinement altered the way you communicate with your creative constituency ?
I’m spending much more time on social media – posting compositions, mine and others, my own reflections. Having to have meetings with collaborators by Zoom rather than in person,  but that works fine.
What are the new forms of connectedness you are seeing emerging as a result of the confinement ?
I feel an increased sense of intimacy as any encounters with people, even virtual, become very loaded. I’m trying to reach out to people beyond the known audience I have in simple ways, not trying to be careerist about it, but appreciating the honest power of communication of ideas in these isolating times.
Do you foresee a change in the way we connect with each other post lockdown ?
There SHOULD be one. I’ve no idea if it will happen though…
What topics/people inspire your communication with the others whilst in self-isolation?
Meditation, birdsong, Sanskrit, poetry, yoga, Wagner, German, Ozark.
Digital connectedness -via social media, videoconferencing, digital platforms- took a much more prominent position in communication strategies. how do you think this will affect the culture of consumerism in the future. 
I hope it will make things much more porous, less hierarchical…

 

What is your personal experience dealing with the virtual world before and since the lockdown?
It’s been pretty intense. My father died last month, so that was a horrible experience in itself, and made worse by not being able to se him. So quite what a “normal lockdown” would have felt like I can’t imagine. My mum, who is 86, has finally come to terms wit FaceTime and it’s and absolute Godsend. so I guess I’m noticing its power for good… imagine if we didn’t have this virtual world now.
Has the lockdown made you more introspection? and if so, in what way? 

I’m very introspective anyway. My natural default state is silent retreat, so this is actually very comfortable for me. I LOVE the quiet, the time, the presence of nature and the absence of pollution. As I heard someone say the other day, it reminds me of the Seventies!!

Art has always served a medium of connectedness in society – how do you see it work under the lockdown?
More necessary than ever. Art is a vital tool for self-expression, for coming to terms with experience, for individuals and for societies. Societies in extremis need that even more.
Alison Myners, Chair of the Royal Academy Trust

8th of May, 2020

How do you stay connected with your creative constituency these days?
The Royal Academy is an artist-led organisation. Founded by artists with artists still at the helm, lead by Rebecca Salter our fabulous President. Our Royal Academicians independently and collectively represent many voices and are involved in many activities at this extraordinary time . The Academy has a great virtual programme with life drawing classes, tours around some remarkable exhibitions such as David Hockney’s 2012 and 2016 shows and Picasso and Paper, activities for the whole family. And of course we are still running our Royal Academy Schools – the only 3 year postgraduate course which is free of charge for our students. It is tough not having them in their studios at the Academy but the teaching goes on virtually and we will still have their Summer show in June 2020. You may also have seen Grayson’s Art Club on Channel 4.

How has the confinement altered the way you communicate with your creative constituency ?
We are all virtual now! Emails, zoom, links of every form of communication to stay connected with audiences, participants alike.

What are the new forms of connectedness you are seeing emerging as a result of the confinement ?
Our digital presence has increased enormously. People want and need to stay connected and to participate in creative processes. Perhaps never more than now. This pulls together families and friends in shared digital activities, people in different locations who can create together or tour and discuss shows.

What is your personal experience dealing with the virtual world before and since the lockdown?
I am not wild about the idea of connecting forever through screens, I love people and personal interaction and the Royal Academy has a fantastic body of supporters and friends coming through the portal of Burlington House every day, I look forward to welcoming our Friends again.

 

However I feel very fortunate that we live in an age where we are able to stay connected in such unprecedented times. Imagine if we did not have this luxury! I have however spent more time ‘viewing’ shows virtually in different locations now than perhaps time might have permitted previously and have vowed to set aside half a day each week just to stand before the actual works – this is what I took for granted and what I truly miss.

Has the lockdown made you more introspection? and if so, in what way?
I have always been a bit introspective. I have worked for several years as a psychotherapeutic counsellor and being able to self-examine is a key part of this.

Art has always served a medium of connectedness in society – how do you see it work under the lockdown?
It is very challenging not to be in the presence of the actual works but I think the Royal Academy has such a brilliant group of supporters and friends and they have not only stayed with us but are also increasing their visits to our digital and virtual platforms in a way I might not have imagined. I know that there is something comforting and familiar in travelling with the Academy and we are all so grateful for the way in which we are able to stay connected with our audiences through our exhibitions and taking part in activities from the comfort of their homes. I have also had many email, calls and zooms with our Patrons and supporters.

• • •

What’s On?

THE dIANe VENEt JeWeLLERY COLLECTion
a JEWELLERY cOLLECTION MadE BY 20TH AND 21ST CENTURIES ARTISTS FROM PICASSO TO JEFF KOONS

“A piece of “artist’s jewellery,” like a painting or a sculpture, is a work of art. Springing from the same creative approach, it possesses the same force, poetry and ability to provoke, sometimes even the same humor. It is only their ultimate purpose that distinguishes one from the other.”

Dates to be announced soon

 

• • •

 

 

ALCHEMy and iNTuiTIon
CELEBRATING THE JEWELLERY OF SHAUN LEANE  with  PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANN RAY

While working as a goldsmith in Hatton Garden, Shaun Leane began a long-standing collaboration with the late Lee Alexander McQueen. United by a shared passion for craftsmanship, together they created breathtaking, provocative catwalk jewels with iconic status.Exploring the role of the jewel, they challenged femininity and fashion, and the perceptions of form, preciousness and meaning.

Please join us to a must-see group show of photorapher Ann Ray and jewellery designer Shaun Leane while celebrating his upcoming book.

London and New York Dates to be announced soon, 2020

 

• • •

 

 

PSYCHOSOMATICA
a SONG CYCLE FOR SINGER AND PSYCHIATRIST BY JOCELYN POOK

The power of mind, the power of thought and the power of emotion trigger a chemical reaction in the body. This is a point where the unconscious takes over and the body reacts of its own volition with a physical symptom.

Pschosomatica explores manifestations of psychological trauma, and its overwhelming prevalence on human health -and consequently behavior- in contemporary society. It is a stage-essay preoccupied with the power of the mind, and its interplay with the body as referred to today in medical terminology as psychosomatic phenomena. The result is a humanistic attempt aiming at redefining the blurring lines between the concepts of physical illness and that of mental wellbeing.

To articulate the ‘unexplained physiological happenings’ featured in the interviews, Jocelyn Pook has created a series of musical movements interspersing observations of Dr Stéphanie Courtade with the ‘patients’ own stories – the music and lyricism of narrative, in constant dialogue with the moving image element generate an evocative immersive experience of what it’s like to live with psychological distress, breaking through to the corporeal self.

Currently in production

 

• • •

 

 

SIMON LEE PROJECT
KURT WEILL SONGS

“Music can only express human sentiments. Often, it is true, these sentiments arise out of the political tendencies of an epoch. For this reason Beethoven’s music is different from Mozart’s, since by Beethoven’s time a new idea of democracy, not known in Mozart’s era, had arisen. But this is all merely historical. No music of any value can be written on a purely political basis, as some of the moderns in Russia and Germany would have us believe. Nor would I ever compose a single bar for esthetic reasons in order to try to create a new style. I write to express human emotions, solely. If music is really human, it doesn’t matter to me how it is conveyed.” Kurt Weill

Simon Lee is writing a new orchestration of Weill’s work, with an emphasis on his European output.

The nature of the material, and the freedom that the passing of the copyright into public domain allows, means that these performances could potentially take many forms – from simple chamber concerts for the ensemble, to larger, more symphonic concerts that still feature the core ensemble and any such incarnations would of course only benefit from the addition of film/projections, lighting, sound and ‘environment’ elements.

There also seems, to us, in a zeitgeist way, that there is an extraordinary resonance in this material with the current global political and migration crises. The repertoire will include Weill’s ‘greatest hits’ reimagined – Mack the Knife, Surabaya Johnny, September Song, Saga of Jenny, Speak Low – as well as the less familiar, including some of his French songs.

Pre-production for recording

 

• • •

 

 

CINEMA ABSOLU, AVANT-GARDE 1920-1930
PATRICK HAAS

” In turn or in parallel, cinema became Futurist, Cubist, Dadaist, Constructivist, abstract and surrealist… Freedom was these “artists-filmmakers” priority. “

During the roaring twenties a number of artists rebelled against moral, cultural and artistic conventions, challenging the traditional hierarchy between the arts : amongst others, Marcel Duchamp, László Moholy-Nagy, Luis Buñuel, Hans Richter, Fernand Léger, Francis Picabia, Len Lye, Man Ray, Walter Ruttmann, Dziga Vertov. They refused to reduce cinema to a documentary technique used to capture reality and to a narrative device modelled on Hollywood’s stereotypical stories. They thought of cinema as an art form, endlessly experimenting with the camera. Doing so, they turned cinema into a lab for artistic experimentations and echoed the other artistic avant-garde of the beginning of the 20th century.

Release date: Date to be announced soon
Price: TBC

For orders and general enquiries, please email: info@artcinema.art

 

 

• • •

 

 

THE SIGNATURE OF THE INVISIBLE
A FILM BY KEN MCMULLEN FEATURING SIR IAN MCKELLEN

“The Signature of the invisible is the emerging cinematic form, a visual and dramatic evocation of preconscious and unconscious impulses that lie latent beneath words”

Ken McMullen’s adaptation of Hamlet is a radical cinematic re-interpretation of Shakespeare’s iconic play focused on creating a highly compelling visual score.

Over the past few years Ken McMullen has brought together a renowned group of actors, artists, international thinkers and high-level cinema technicians to carry out ‘concrete’, recorded research in a filmed process exploring the chasm between language, image and meaning.

This exploration aims to be resolved in a time-based moving-image work. As its focus this work began to explore, in close readings and dissections, the text of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and other closely related texts.

Release date December 2020

Exhibitions

ALCHEMY AND INTUITION 


CELEBRATING THE JEWELLERY OF SHAUN LEANE  with  PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANN RAY

While working as a goldsmith in Hatton Garden, Shaun Leane began a long-standing collaboration with the late Lee Alexander McQueen. United by a shared passion for craftsmanship, together they created breathtaking, provocative catwalk jewels with iconic status.Exploring the role of the jewel, they challenged femininity and fashion, and the perceptions of form, preciousness and meaning.

Please join us to a must-see group show of photorapher Ann Ray and jewellery designer Shaun Leane while celebrating his upcoming book.

London and New York Dates to be announced soon, 2020

 

• • •

 

 

THE dIANe VENEt JeWeLLERY COLLECTion
a JEWELLERY cOLLECTION MadE BY 20TH AND 21ST CENTURIES ARTISTS FROM PICASSO TO JEFF KOONS

“A piece of “artist’s jewellery,” like a painting or a sculpture, is a work of art. Springing from the same creative approach, it possesses the same force, poetry and ability to provoke, sometimes even the same humor. It is only their ultimate purpose that distinguishes one from the other.”

Dates to be announced soon

 

• • •

 

 

rendez – vous
ann ray and mcqueen

”You know, it was simple. He was part of my life, we loved each other, I had rendez-vous…” Ann Ray 

Art Cinema in collaboration with the Barrett Barrera Projects is proud to present a new selection of pictures that explores the thirteen-year friendship and intimate creative collaboration between the late British designer Lee Alexander McQueen and French photographer Ann Ray, who McQueen personally selected to document his design process and the behind-the-scenes experience of his runway shows.

The exhibition features photographs taken by Ray, reflecting her unique relationship with McQueen between the years of 1997 and 2010, alongside garments McQueen gifted to her over the course of their work together.

 

View the Invitation
Download the press release

Exhibition: 5th October 2019 to 15th February 2020

Barrett Barrera Projects

4568 Manchester AvenueSaint Louis, MO 63110

 

• • •

 

 

ANN RAY AT Mcqueen london
stories and processes behind the creation

”For people who know McQueen, there is always an underlying message. It’s usually only the intellectual ones who understand what’s going on in what I do.” Alexander McQueen 

Art Cinema is proud to announce that Ann Ray’s work is shown at the McQueen London Flagship store. The exhibition is focused on the stories and processes behind the creation of specific looks/collections from concept to final product.It is really about work in progress and how the collections come together so showing contact sheets works nicely within that theme. 

Exhibition: Dates TBC

Alexander McQueen

27 Old Bond Street, Mayfair, London, W1S 4QE

 

• • •

 

 

Gravitas
Lee alexander Mcqueen by Ann Ray

”…the semblance of silence and the almost immobile, to transmit fragments of anything as long as they are human, sincere and genuine, to picture the working drawing, the almost, the not-yeti the invisible, the unexpected, the beauty, the grotesque, and the terrible, the fragile, the cracked, the marvelled, the terrified and unfinished, to show the dark side of the moon, the flickering splendour of souls and the stubborn folly the damaged works that unsettle and stand up to time” Ann Ray 

Art Cinema in collaboration with the Galerie de la Béraudière is proud to present a new selection of pictures that highlight the Alexander McQueen’s obsessions. The photographer’s eye reveals with great humanity McQueen’s world, somewhere between illusion and reality. With great talent, Ann Ray captures the silence and immobility perceptible in the most hectic moments

View the Invitation
Download the press release

Exhibition: 25th of April until 12th of July 2019

Galerie de la Béraudière

6 rue Jacques Jordaens, 1000 Brussels Tel: +32 2 646 92 15
Mail: galerie@delaberaudiere.com Website: www.delaberaudiere.com

 

• • •

 

 

blind faith
 exhibition by Ann Ray

“This is my contribution to the world: a licence to dream” Ann Ray

Art Cinema is delighted to present BLIND FAITH, an exhibition of photography by French artist and filmmaker Ann Ray. Shot over the past fourteen years, the exhibition features numerous encounters between Ray and a wide range of art practitioners, from actors, writers, choreographers, dancers, filmmakers, composers, such as Willem Dafoe, Alexander McQueen and Mikhail Baryshnikov amongst others. The photographer’s brief is to pose with the eyes shut, with the intention to convey a subliminal truth, one which demands the silencing of the sight, as a form of interference. It is said that the eyes are the mirror of the soul but maybe there is another conduit to decipher the most intimate thoughts, dreams and feelings. This is Ray’s attempt to offer an insight into the abstract, the invisible and the unsaid, for a better understanding of human nature.

View the Invitation
Download the press release

Exhibition: April 18th-June 2nd 2019

Ca’ Pesaro
Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna Santa Croce 2076,
30135 Venezia, Italy

 

• • •

 

 

 

Unfinished
Lee Mcqueen by Ann Ray

”I want to tell the truth about Lee, the truth of Lee: He was a man of art, of great beauty. He asked me to photograph everything, anything, without boundaries, with an open heart. Lee was not really a fashion designer, nor an artist: he was truly and simply a poet. I want to bring to light the intricate facets of a wonderful and complex man. It is impossible to understand the oeuvre without understanding the man. This is the man as I knew: this is the truth of the legend” Ann Ray 2017

Art Cinema in collaboration with the Festival des rencontres de la photographie de Arles are proud to present ‘The Unfinished’, an exhibition of photography, moving image and mixed media featuring for the first time ever a selection of works from Ann Ray’s extensive photographic archives documenting her close friendship with the late Icon of British Fashion, Lee Alexander McQueen.

Curated by the maverick Sam Stourdze, the show explores, on the one hand, Lee’s incommensurable patrimony through the study of his artistic inclinations and inspirations; and, on the other hand, the friendship and creative collaboration between Lee and Ray. Thirteen chapters portray the genius and graceful spirit that animated the two artists, leading to some of the most iconic pictures of our time.

View the Invitation
Download the press release

Exhibition: July 2nd – September 23rd 2018

Les Rencontres d’Arles
Atelier Des Forges
33 avenue Victor Hugo
13200 Arles, France

Art Cinema with the Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival present in China ‘The Unfinished – Lee Mcqueen’.

Jimei x Arles was co-created in 2015 by pioneer Chinese photographer RongRong (founder of China’s first ever photography museum, Three Shadows Photography Art Centre) and Sam Stourdzé, the director of Rencontres d’Arles, Jimei × Arles has grown to become an unmissable event for photo lovers in China. The festival  brings together photographers from around the world whilst providing a platform for new Chinese Photography. ‘The Unfinished’ is one of eight exhibitions shown during the summer at Rencontres d’Arles that has travelled to China. During his first official visit to China in January 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron recognised the festival as a unique example of Sino-French cultural cooperation.

Download the press release

Exhibition:  November 23rd 2018- January 2nd 2019

Jimei x Arles International Photography Festival
Jimei Citizen Square Exhibition Hall
Jimei District
Xiamen, China

Films

Art Cinema is pleased to present:

THE  SIGNATURE OF THE INVISIBLE

 

Opening Date: December 2020

Ken McMullen’s adaptation of Hamlet is a radical cinematic re-interpretation of Shakespeare’s iconic play focused on creating a highly compelling visual score.

Over the past few years Ken McMullen has brought together a renowned group of actors, artists, international thinkers and high-level cinema technicians to carry out ‘concrete’, recorded research in a filmed process exploring the chasm between language, image and meaning.

This exploration aims to be resolved in a time-based moving-image work. As its focus this work began to explore, in close readings and dissections, the text of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and other closely related texts.

The Signature of the invisible is the emerging cinematic form, a visual and dramatic evocation of preconscious and unconscious impulses that lie latent beneath words.

 

• • •

WAR WORK: 8 Songs with Film
by mICHAEL NYMAN

Art Cinema and Marquee TV are proud to announce the digital release of War Work: Eight Songs with Film, Michael Nyman’s creation commemorating the centenary of the First World War. A total artwork, it combines various visual, poetic and musical archives.

Eight songs form a song cycle inspired by the Belgian Gaston de Ruyter’s Chansons Vieilles sur d’Autres Airs (old songs to other tunes). Poems written by poets who all died during the war, except David Bomberg, are set to music based on emblematic tunes by Beethoven, Rossini, Schubert, Chopin and others.

Without a voice-over, War Work reveals the potency of images from German and French First World War film archives which have rarely been seen. The film element, edited by Max Pugh, unearths the bodies of war – mutilated and disfigured soldiers – which have too often been forgotten. War Work does not show the slaughter but the effects of war and its memory: the psychological trauma and the physical wounds caused by a humanitarian disaster after which nothing would be the same again.

“It’s a film without any dialogue, commentary or interviews, and it is basically raw visual material and raw sound material. It’s a thrilling way of making a film and a thrilling way of using images with intelligence. 

“This kind of stream of consciousness approach of being a quasi-documentary maker I think has been the most thrilling film project I’ve ever been involved with, and now I have a real appetite for taking this approach and making other films with available documentation.” Michael Nyman 2018

Digital release: Marquee TV, December 15th 2018

Download the press release

 

Publications

Art Cinema is proud to present
‘Cinéma Absolu, Avant-garde 1920-1930’
Patrick de Haas

cinema absolu, Avant-garde
pAtrick de haas

Release date: Date to be announced soon
Price: TBC

For orders and general enquiries, please email: info@artcinema.art

• • •

Art Cinema is proud to present
‘Les Inacheves’
a publication of photography to accompany the exhibition

Unfinished
Lee Mcqueen by Ann Ray

Release date: June 21st 2018
Edition Number: 2000
Price: €39

For orders and general enquiries, please email: info@artcinema.art
Available at the
Festival des Rencontres Photographiques de Arles
Librairie des Rencontres d’Arles
2 Rue du Moulin
13200 Arles France
N°ISBN 978-2-9539762-1-2

Printed by STIPA, Montreuil, France.
With the generous support of 23 Capital, La Mode en Images, and the Private Art Collection of Florence & Damien Bachelot.

• • •

Art Cinema are delighted to publish
Picasso-Godard
Collage(s)

JEAN-LUC GODARD ET PABLO PICASSO.
WITH WORKS BY ALAIN BERGALA, ANGE LECCIA,
JEAN-DANIEL POLLET AND ANDRÉ VILLERS.

Curated by Dominique Païni an exhibition exploring the relationships between the filmmaker and the painter’s work. The exhibition sheds light on a method they shared-collage, and suggests surprising iconographic coincidences.

Exhibition: July 2nd – September 23rd 2018

Les Rencontres d’Arles
Abbaye de Montmajour
Route de Fontvielle
13200 Arles

Release date: June 2018
Edition Number: 1000
Language: French
Price: €29

For orders and general enquiries, please email: info@artcinema.art

Available at the
Festival des Rencontres Photographiques de Arles
Librairie des Rencontres d’Arles
2 Rue du Moulin
13200 Arles France
NoISBN 978-1-9164058-0-6

Printed by STIPA, Montreuil, France
The exhibition is produced by the Centre des monuments nationaux (CMN), the Rencontres d’Arles, with support from the Musée national Picasso, Paris and the Swiss Confederation.

Past Events

eYES WIDE SHUT SCREENING AND DISCUSSION
WITH JOCELYN POOK, KATHARINA KUBRICK AND MATT WELLS 

Sexual desire takes a dangerous turn in Kubrick’s enigmatic swansong, starring Kidman and Cruise. 

Please join us at the BFI Southbank for the screening of Kubricks final film, music by Jocelyn Pook. Followed by a discussion with Katharina Kubrick, Jocelyn Pook and Matt Wells.
Eyes wide shut is an incredible display of precision and suspense, featuring a fragile relationship played out by (then) real-life couple Kidman and Cruise. When Alice Harford admits to her husband Bill that she’s having sexual thoughts about another man, it sets off an obsession in him to have an erotic encounter – which leads him into an unforgiving world that he isn’t prepared for. Shot over a mammoth 15-month period, and based on Arthur Schnitzler’s novella Dream Story, Eyes Wide Shut explores the seductive and dangerous sexual underbelly of New York’s elite..

Dir Stanley Kubrick
With Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack, Todd Field
159min
UK-USA 1999

Eyes Wide Shut Screening and Discussion

Friday 29 November 2019, 18:30
BFI Southbank, NFT 1

tickets on sale now

 

• • •

 

 

kingmaker screening at the bfi london film festival
music by JOCELYN POOK

An enraging portrait of entitlement, opulence and corruption, The Kingmaker starts as a profile of Imelda Marcos but soon widens its perspective to depict a Philippines in peril…

Don’t miss the screenings of Kingmaker at the BFI London Film Festival. Art Cinema is proud to announce that the music has written by Jocelyn Pook.
Centred on the indomitable character of Imelda Marcos, The Kingmakerexamines, with unprecedented access, the Marcos family’s improbable return to power in the Philippines.

Dir Lauren Greenfield
Music by Jocelyn Pook
Prod Frank Ever, Lauren Greenfield
2019

Kingmaker

Monday 07 October 2019, 17:45
Curzon Soho Cinema, Screen 1
Wednesday 09 October 2019, 20:40
ICA Cinema, Screen 1

tickets on sale now

 

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Prom 49 : The lost words
JOCELYN POOK AT the proms

A celebration of nature in music, inspired by the bestselling book The Lost Words. Pounding oceans, enchanted woods, threatened birds and the powerful words of Greta Thunberg …

Art Cinema is proud to announce Jocelyn Pook’s new original musical work composed for Prom number 49, featuring the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain and performed by the Southbank Sinfonia. Pook’s new piece sets words from speeaches by environmental activist Greta Thunberg to music. The concert celebrates the rich musical landscape of nature and is inspired by the bestselling book The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane which revives disappearing words describing the natural world. The concert will be accompanied by live painting by Jackie Morris.

Performance: Prom 49: The Lost Words

Sunday August 25th, 2019
17.30-19:30
Royal Albert Hall
Kensington Gore, South Kensington, London SW7 2AP, UK

tickets on sale now

 

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Composher
JOCELYN POOK AT earth (Evolutionary arts hackney)

ComposHER is a new concert celebrating the best new music to moving picture, featuring a stunning roster of some of the best women composers writing for the screen today. The aim of the concert is not only to showcase this incredible talent in the UK, of composers scoring film, TV and more, but also to inspire the next generation of women composers and to seek to make this area of the industry as inclusive as possible for future generations.

Art Cinema is proud to announce Jocelyn Pook’s music being played as part of ComposHer concert series. With composition being one of the most unequal areas of the global music industry, much work to tackle this has already taken place: 2018 saw the launch of the UK Women Composers’ Forum, as well as a new global database of women composers writing for visual media on FreeTheBid.com.This concert seeks to continue to support and empower the UK women composers’ community, towards further progression and change in 2019.

Performance: ComposHer

Wednesday June 12th, 2019
19.00-23:00
EartH (Evolutionary Arts Hackney)
11-17 Stoke Newington Rd, London N16 8BH

tickets on sale now

 

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the sound of kubrick
JOCELYN POOK ENSEMBLE AT THE DESIGN MUSEUM

To coincide with “Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition” at the Design museum, the Jocelyn Pook ensemble will perform excerpts from Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut Soundtrack and other material on May 3rd as part of the Museum Late: The Sound Of Stanley Kubrick event.


Art Cinema is proud to present The Jocelyn Pook Ensemble performing excerpt from Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut Soundtrack, composed in 1999 by Britain’s most successful female composer: Jocelyn Pook. The Jocelyn Pook Ensemble will perform music from her albums Untold Things, Flood and selections from some of her film scores including Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 psychological drama Eyes Wide Shut.
The line-up will include stellar vocalists and regular collaborators: Melanie Pappenheim, Carnatic vocalist Manickam Yogeswaren, and Tanja Tzarovska from Macedonia, as well as cellist Sophie Harris whose sublime solo playing features on the soundtracks of The Wife, The Staircase, Eyes Wide Shut and Brick Lane; Jon Banks on gothic harp and the Arabic qanun, violinists Emma Smith and Alice Zawadski, and Jocelyn on viola.

Performance: Jocelyn Pook Ensemble

Friday May 3rd, 2019
19.45-20.30
The Design Museum Atrium
224-238 Kensington High St, Kensington, London W8 6AG

During the event the exhibition will remain open.

 

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In Partnership with Taiwan Film Festival UK, HTC Vive Arts, Curzon Cinemas, Tate Film at Tate Modern, Art Cinema is pleased to present:

THE DESERTED
by TSAI MING-LIANG

A feature length Virtual Reality Film for a new experience of Cinema.

Opening Date: April 3 2019
Asia House 63 New Cavendish St, London W1G 7LP

The UK premiere of The Deserted, Tsai Ming-Liang’s 2017 feature length virtual reality (VR) film, is one of the highlights of the inaugural Taiwan Film Festival UK. The initial screening is on 3 April 2019, at a specially designed VR pop-up cinema at Asia House in central London, and will then be open to the public from 4-8 April, with seven showings a day.

The Deserted tells the surreal story of a man living in a ruined house in the mountains with two ghosts and a fish. Recovering from an illness and unable to communicate with the ghosts, his only companion is the lone fish who swims with him in the bathtub.
A lauded master of slow cinema, Tsai Ming-Liang chose this film to open the retrospective that he curated in close collaboration with Festival director, Aephie Chen for the Taiwan Film Festival UK. This includes a selection of his fiction feature-length films and shorts showing at the Tate Modern’s Starr Cinema from 5 – 7 April and Tsai will participate in post-screening Q&As, as well as lead a filmmaking masterclass at the Tate. This is a rare opportunity to hear him in conversation as Tsai has not been to the UK for over a decade.

The VR cinema is in partnership with Art Cinema and sponsored by HTC Vive Arts and MSI, the Festival’s virtual reality partners. The UK premiere of The Deserted will be shown in 8K resolution, which is a significant improvement on the 4K resolution of the original world premiere at the 2017 Venice Film Festival.

Director Tsai Ming-Liang collaborated with Taiwanese architect Rain Wu to create the cinema, incorporating visual clues from the The Deserted’s film set – a rural ruin with lush tropical nature visible through the wall punctures. High performance gaming computers from MSI and HTC’s groundbreaking VR Theatre Management System will be used to create a synchronised, immersive cinema experience where 20 people can watch the film at the same time. This technology has influenced the design of the physical space which resembles the lobby of a cinema, typically seen as a waiting space. It represents the area in between constant reality (the outside world) and a temporal reality (the cinema screen), a Purgatory space between the living and the dead of the film.

“Art Cinema is thrilled to work with Taiwan Film Festival and help stage the UK premiere of The Deserted by the highly-acclaimed Director Tsai Ming-Liang. This installation aims to bring the most thrilling experience to an array of audiences ranging from Film d’Auteurs lovers all the way to the most savvy explorers of virtual reality realms. Such encounters establish what 21st-century paradigms of art display and engagement are all about.”
Art Cinema founder, Myriam Blundell Phillips

Download the press release

 

Our Team

Myriam Blundell Phillips
Dominique Païni
Topi Lehtipuu
Alix Agret
Elif Karlidag

Myriam Blundell Phillips is the founder and the managing director of Art Cinema. An international impresario and independent multi-media producer, her experience encompasses inter-disciplinary curatorial consultation and talent management as well as content conceptualization and production. Between 2005 and 2016, Blundell Phillips ran her own talent management agency providing both commercial and creative guidance to an eclectic pool of artists, including internationally acclaimed British composer Michael Nyman (for whom she acted as global manager and producer); Belgian artist, writer and theatre director Jan Fabre, British filmmaker Martha Fiennes, Canadian artist and filmmaker Jody Shapiro and French artist Ann Ray. Since 2011, Ms Blundell Phillips produced and released two art house documentaries entitled: NYman with a Movie Camera and “War Work”. Her previous non-executive achievements include leading the Friends of Signy and Olaf Willums Foundation in Aix-en-Provence, sitting as the founding chair of the international collectors forum as well as joining the board of trustees the Contemporary Art Society in London.myriam@artcinema.art

Dominique Païni is the former head of the Cinémathèque Française and director of multidisciplinary projects and Film at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. He brings an extensive and wealth of knowledge of curating the intersection between visual arts and film. His expérience as a seasoned essay writer and publisher is a huge contribution to Art Cinema’s focus on producing the highest standards possibly achievable in the fields of writings and Publishing. Dominique Païni’s latest exhibition Godard- Picasso : Collages is currently on display at the Festival des rencontres Photogrpahique d’Arles until September 23rd 2018.
dominique@artcinema.art

Topi Lehtipuu In addition to a career as a tenor of international renown, Topi has developed a sharp expertise in conceiving and producing high-caliber productions involving multi-disicplinary approach to culture promotion.  He was Director of the Helsinki Festival from 2015 to 2018 following on  artistic directorship of Turku Music Festival as well as of Joroinen Music Days, a chamber music festival in eastern Finland.topi@artcinema.art

Alix Agret is an art historian. She holds a MA in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art and a PhD in Fine Arts from the Royal College of Art. Visual culture, representations of the body and eroticism were at the core of the MA in History and the MA in Film Studies she earned in France (Paris-Sorbonne University and Paris West University Nanterre la Défense). She has worked as an assistant curator on several exhibitions in France. She regularly writes articles for art magazines.
alix@artcinema.art

Elif Karlidag has a background in composition and music business with a classical music education in piano, composition and conducting. She has worked as a performer and she also has experience working with artists, musicians and establishments, planning, project managing and curating events. As Arts Cinema’s creative producer she is responsible to work within PR and marketing where she creates, develops and produces content and strategy across all media.
elif@artcinema.art

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