Programmed July 2025

Portraits of Artists

The best films about artists don’t just document their lives and practices, but are themselves acts of artistic interpretation. Eschewing conventional biography in favor of formal experimentation, these boldly conceived works mirror the creativity of their subjects through the language of film. Using the aesthetic worlds of visionaries like Pablo Picasso ( The Mystery of Picasso ), R. Crumb ( Crumb ), Jean-Michel Basquiat ( Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child ), and David Lynch ( David Lynch: The Art Life ) as jumping-off points for their own free-flowing exploration, these films stand as fascinating dialogues between subject and filmmaker.