For the occasion of ARTISSIMA 24, DOC is presenting three films between cinema and contemporary art: China’s Van Goghs, Koudelka Shooting Holy Land and Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back.
Cinema Massimo – From 3 to 6 November 2017 – Screen Three
For the occasion of Artissima Fair – one of the most important contemporary art fairs in Europe, reaching its twenty-fourth edition this year - the National Cinema Museum is offering three very recently produced documentaries at the cinema Massimo, which present an original point of view on an increasingly complex and stratified world from different angles. Admission 6.00/4.00 euro.
Screenings calendar
Fri 3 and Sun 5, at 4.00 p.m./Mon 6, at 6.00 p.m.
Yu Haibo, Yu Tianqi Kiki
China’s Van Goghs
(China/Netherlands 2016, 82’, DCP, col., o.v. it.s/t)
A posse of Chinese Van Goghs. It is the human scenario in the neighbourhood of Dafen, in the Chinese metropolis of Shenzhen, where work proceeds along unceasing rhythms to make exact reproductions of Van Gogh paintings, much on demand on the international market. But for Zhao Xiaoyong, a former farmer now turned into a painter, this objectifying dimension, which strips form of its content, is no longer enough.
Fri 3 at 6.00 p.m./Sun 5, at 8.30 p.m.
Gilad Baram
Koudelka Shooting Holy Land
(Germany/Czech Republic 2015, 76’, DCP, col., o.v. it.s/t)
Over five years, from 2008 to 2012, Israeli photographer Gilad Baram accompanied Josef Koudelka, the famous photographer from the Magnum agency, in his journey into the Holy Land, providing assistance and logistic support. This experience appears to have left its mark on his life, not only professionally, by giving him an opportunity to make this documentary, which pairs black and white photographs shot by Koudelka with footage filming the creative process of one of the greatest masters of photography.
Sun 5, at 6.00 p.m./Mon 6, at 4.00 p.m.
Maura Axelrod
Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back
(Usa 2016, 90’, DCP, col., o.v. it.s/t)
The film talks about one of the most ironical figures in the art of our times, interviewing curators, collectors and critics on what makes the author of artworks like La nona ora (showing Pope John Paul II struck by a meteorite) and Him (showing Hitler on his knees), unique. After a period in which he specialised in work based on taxidermy, Cattelan began to create life-sized statues in wax dedicated to famous figures: this gave birth to some of his most famed pieces, such as Untitled, in which the artist’s self-portrait emerges from a hole in the floor.