ARTE Distribution

1937 was the last summer before war. Picasso, Man Ray and friends, passionate artists and poets, gathered in the South of France. This is the journey of the end of a great artistic era.

Discover the summer of 1937, in Mougins. This film recounts the end of a great artistic era over one particular summer. Photography, painting, poetry, and cinema were all mixed in the carefree spirit and friendship... But very quickly the war arrived, and everything changed, the world was upended and so was art; the film tells of this epiphany, this ephemeral moment that probably only existed precisely because everyone felt the end of this era was coming.

Lee Miller was an American photographer, and served as model and muse to Man Ray. She died in 1977.

Sylvain Roumette brings this exceptional and true adventuress in photography back to life, a woman who said never to have lost a minute of her life. Her son and the photographer David Scherman guide us through the life and career of Lee Miller from her first steps as a nude model photographed by her father, and then by Man Ray, to the series of photographs that she took of Montparnasse in the thirties and the ones as a war correspondent.

Released on DVD by ARTE VIDEO
Bonus :
Portofolio of Lee Miller's Photography

David Bailey is monumental. His photos of the Beatles, the Stones, his pared-down style that borrows Nadar's and Avedon's white backgrounds, and his numerous reports have made him one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century.

In 1966, he was the inspiration behind the character in Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blow Up.
His photos possess a disconcerting naturalness, and a musical simplicity. David Bailey says of himself that he cannot be plagiarised, as he has no style. It is perhaps this humorously put desire to remain unclassifiable that has enabled him to be present in all areas of creation, from fashion to cinema, from reporting to contemporary art. David Bailey turns his hand to everything. Yet via this documentary, we discover an unpretentious man, a man whose sense of humour is matched only by his great sensitivity and discrete extravagance.

The long-forgotten Documerica project, that was led by Nixon in the 1970s, aimed to draw a precise inventory of the environmental situation in the U.S. What stands out from the 80,000 photographs that were taken is that the Glorious Thirties turned the American Dream into a nightmare.

It's a project that has fallen off the radar of history.  A vast and unprecedented undertaking, as excessive as America itself, which was launched at the turn of the tumultuous 1970s. Its title: the Documerica project. Its goal: to"pictorially document the environmental movement in America during this decade" after thirty years of unbridled consumerism. For nearly 5 years, between 1972 and 1977, a hundred photographers roamed all 50 American states. They brought back nearly 80,000 color images from their missions encompassing the immensity of this country-continent. In their autumn years, some of these photographers look back on this project, whose echo resonates more than ever today, when the American Dream is fading away. Dilapidated towns, illegal garbage dumps, polluted rivers and deserts, there is a hint of the apocalypse wherever you go. The wrecked cars that litter the Great Plains are reminiscent of the buffalo carcasses left by the first setlers. Placed side by side, by accumulation, the images point to the blindness of "all oil" and the brutality of the American Way of Life. This ambiguous selfportrait was made at a time when America was the most fragile, in the midst of a social, economic, and political crisis, exacerbated by the Vietnam War. Embodying a moment of truth in a country that had reached the limits of its American Dream, The Documerica Project tells the story of America in its most paradoxical and intimate aspects, questioning all its great promises: the relationship with nature, the cult of consumerism, the dream of the melting pot, the individual and communities, and above all, freedom. But more importantly, it tells us that then and now, torn between the vision of a wild Eden and the brutal conquest of natural spaces, America seems incapable of ever making peace with Nature.

His name is probably unknown to you. However, you probably already have his photographs. The Indians called him "the Shadow Catcher". It is the story of a man, Edward S. Curtis, who has photographed and cataloged more than 80 North American Indian ethnicities for over 30 years.

Discovery of these Pueblos, name of these Amerindian villages, suspended in the sky, vast spaces and Amerindian culture.

The Contacts collection is an invitation to discover the artistic approach of the greatest contemporary photographers from an original angle. Through a series of images (contact sheets, proofs, prints and slides), with a commentary by the photographer, the viewer enters the secret world of their creation and is guided into the heart of the photographic creative process.

CONTACTS is a collection of films about contemporary photography. Each film traces the development of an individual photographer. With the help of the programme director, the photographer puts together a retrospective, selecting images from his or her contact sheets, proof prints and end-prints to show how his or her work has changed in character and meaning over the years.
Photographers use contact sheets and proofs of various kinds as an aid to memory or a log-book. Exploring these visual jottings provides us with an invaluable insight into their working methods.
Over the years, the initial concept of the collection has evolved. CONTACTS now includes major contemporary artists like Sophie Calle, Jeff Wall, Nan Goldin and Hiroshi Sugimoto, whose work makes use of photographic techniques, alongside famous photo-journalists like William Klein, Helmut Newton, Robert Doisneau and Henri Cartier-Bresson. CONTACTS has become an international reference for all those who are interested in contemporary photography.

3 DVD released by ARTE Video

2000 : Certificat Of Merit Winner au Festival International Du Film De San Francisco for NAN GOLDIN. 1999 : Mention Spéciale à Vue Sur Les Docs for NAN GOLDIN. 1994 : Golden FIPA for SARAH MOON. 1993 : Prix du Meilleur Film de Jeunes au Festival du Court-métrage De Tampere for DON MCCULLIN. 1992 : Mention Spéciale at the Festival International Du Documentaire - Visions Du Réel (Nyon) for DON MCCULLIN.

Sensitive witnesses of their country and society, young Chinese, Indian and Russian photographers provide their vision of their countries. Extraordinary images to better understand the clamor of an era.

This documentary series takes us on the trail of artists who travel around China, camera in hand. With a strikingly modern perspective, they bear witness to the upheaval their country is experiencing.
This series also opens windows onto contemporary India through pioneering photographic works that question the country regarding the massive social changes it went through.
Then, while impossible to produce an exhaustive portrait of Russia, this series provides an unusual take on this intriguing land that challenges modern representations.

Every snapshot is an enigma, the capture of an instant that remains frozen in time. But what happened before? and after? Or just outside of frame? The sublime series now retraces the adventure of this art form, from its beginnings to the present, revealing the hidden stories and trade secrets concealed in a series of photographs.

Every photograph is an enigma. A moment locked into a rectangle. We will never know what happened just before it was taken, or just next to it.
What had to be moved, adjusted, waited for or provoked for all the elements to suddenly come together in the frame and produce an image that once seen, is never forgotten?

Compared to painting, the rules of the photography game are incredibly simple, requiring nothing more than a few pieces in a minimalist game of chess - a subject, a frame, light, a lens, a shutter, and a base. The importance of these pieces varies according to their position, and they are moved around permanently in relation to each other.

The collection invites viewers to discover from the inside "how it's done", and imagine themselves as actors in the complex game that is played out between photography and the real.
 

David Bailey is a cultural icon who has been at the cutting-edge of contemporary art for 50 years.

From Vogue magazine fashion photographer to filmmaker, painter and sculptor, Bailey is the working-class Londoner who befriended the stars (Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, Jack Nicholson, Roman Polanski), married his muses (Jean Shrimpton, Catherine Deneuve, Marie Helvin) and captures the spirit and elegance of his times with his refreshingly simple approach and razor-sharp eye.

He is also the man whose life and work inspired one of the cult movies of the sixties, Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up.

Featuring interviews with art critic Martin Harrison, Bailey's former wife Catherine Deneuve, his current wife of over twenty years Catherine Dyer, and his close friend Jerry Hall, Jérôme de Missolz's documentary is an engaging portrait of this very private man who bared the soul of the swinging sixties and seventies with his photographs and films. Grounded, honest, open and ferociously creative, Bailey makes art the way Count Basie played jazz: Four beats to the bar and no cheating.

This documentary follows 200 days in life of the contemporary artist Hiroshi Sugimoto - a leading presence in the world of modern art. He has taken the medium of photography and perceiving it as a form of conceptual art, has extended the barriers of expression.

He is the winner of many prestigious awards and his photographs are sold for millions of yen at overseas auctions.

The film shows the sites of the Architecture series shot in southern France, the huge installation art work at 17th Biennale of Sydney, his new work Mathematics at Provence, his art studio at New York while working on Lightning Fields, his recent direction and production of tradition Japanese performance art and so on.

It thoroughly pursues the question Sugimoto's works pose - "living in modern times, what are these works trying to tell us?" A thrilling look into the world of Hiroshi Sugimoto.

Heavenly natural settings from all around the world, legendary top models, international actresses, the most renowned photographers... discover for the first time the making-of of the most prestigious calendar : " The Cal " for those who know it.

With only 20 000 copies printed each year, the Cal is a mix of charm, stylishness, talent and sexy that captures the spirit of times with the most famous models, from Naomi Campbell to Heidi Klum, without forgetting Cindy Crawford, Laetitia Casta, Kate Moss, Eva Herzigova or Gisèle Bundchen. The most sought-after photographers have also worked for these now legendary calendars like Richard Avdon, Terry Richardson, Hans Feurer, Peter Lindbergh, Patrick Demarchelier, Annie Leibovitz.

Since its first edition in 1964, the Pirelli calendar has had the most beautiful women of the moment, immortalized in amazing settings by in vogue photographers. Behind these magnetic photos, it's an entire era that one discovers, with its aesthetic codes and archetypes.

But how did this commercial product with limited edition become an highly desirable piece of collection? For the first time, using photos, making of images and numerous interviews, this movie reveals all the secrets behind the production of the most mythical sexy calendar.

With Photography being very much in vogue, it is a fitting time to dedicate a film to women photographers and to set the record straight on their little-known talents. ©Judy Dater
 

Ask people to name 5 photographers, from past or present, and the chances are that few will think to name a woman. Yet since Photography was first invented, women have made an incontestable contribution to the art form. 
©Judy Dater, Ms. Clingfree, 1982