From Canvas to Screen: Art Films on the Kino Film Collection
Without art, there is no cinema. The rules of composition and lighting that give every shot meaning come from thousands of years of artistic innovation and tradition. From the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio to the balanced symmetry of Renaissance paintings, visual storytelling in cinema is built upon the aesthetic foundations laid by painters, sculptors, and visual artists across centuries. But beyond forming the building blocks of cinematography, art constantly acts as a direct inspiration for filmmakers. Directors frequently reference classical and modern artworks not only to guide the visual tone of their films but also to evoke emotional resonance, historical context, or thematic depth. And artists themselves often inspire unforgettable characters and narratives. The tortured genius, the visionary outsider, or the subversive rebel - these tropes often reflect archetypes rooted in real-life creators.
From documentaries and biopics about artists both beloved and unknown, to sweeping dramas that capture the spirit of an artform through cinema, the Kino Film Collection features a number of films that celebrate art in all of its beauty, pain, and wonder.
Lech Majewski • Arthouse • 2011 • Poland, Sweden
Rutger Hauer, Charlotte Rampling, and Michael York star in this deeply immersive feature which transports viewers into Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s masterpiece "The Procession to Calvary." Blending meticulous period detail with groundbreaking digital effects, the film reconstructs 16th-century Flanders in breathtaking realism, portraying the daily lives of its inhabitants while capturing the socio-political turmoil of the era.
Suzanne Raes • Documentary • 2023 • Netherlands
Go behind the scenes of the largest Vermeer exhibition ever, mounted in early 2023 at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Capturing the imagination of the art world, the retrospective was nothing short of an historic event. Suzanne Raes’s film follows curators, conservators, collectors, and experts in their joint mission to shine a new light on the elusive Dutch Master.
Derek Jarman • Drama • 1986 • UK
Derek Jarman's profound reflection on art, sexuality and identity retells the life of the celebrated 17th-century painter through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld. The painter's precise aesthetic makes up the movie's visuals, and touches Jarman's major concerns: history, homosexuality, violence and the relationship between painting and film.
Bruno Dumont • Drama • 2013 • France
Juliette Binoche gives a mesmerizing performance as sculptor Camille Claudel, Auguste Rodin's protégé and later mistress. Inspired by the correspondence with her brother, Christian/mystic poet Paul Claudel, award-winning director Bruno Dumont focuses on Claudel's struggle to find understanding and recognition as an artist while she is confined to a mental institution.
Jeffrey Wolf • Documentary • 2018 • US
This illuminating documentary tells the incredible story of Bill Traylor, a former slave who turned to drawing at age 85, creating colorful, strikingly modernist work that eventually led him to be recognized as one of America’s greatest self-taught artists and the subject of a Smithsonian retrospective.
Dome Karukoski • Biopic • 2017 • Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany
The proudly erotic drawings of artist Touko Laaksonen, known to the world as Tom of Finland, shaped the fantasies of a generation of gay men, influencing art and fashion. This stirring biopic follows his life from the trenches of WWII and repressive Finnish society through to when he and his art were finally embraced amid the sexual revolution of the 1970s.
Beyond the Visible – Hilma af Klint
Halina Dyrschka • Documentary • 2019 • Germany
The subject of a 2018 awe-inspiring retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, Hilma af Klint was an abstract artist before the term even existed. This course-correcting documentary describes not only the life and craft of af Klint, but also the process of her mischaracterization and erasure by both a patriarchal narrative of artistic progress and capitalistic determination of artistic value.
Hieronymus Bosch: Touched by the Devil
Pieter van Huystee • Documentary • 2016 • Netherlands
Follow a team of Dutch art historians as they crisscross the globe to unravel the secrets of Hieronymus Bosch. In 2016, the Noordbrabants Museum in the Dutch city of Den Bosch held a special exhibition devoted to the work of the late-medieval artist who lived his entire life there, causing an uproar with his fantastical and unique paintings in which hell and the devil played a prominent role.
I've Heard the Mermaids Singing
Patricia Rozema • Comedy • 1987 • Canada
Patricia Rozema’s charming, whimsical story about a waifish daydreamer with artistic aspirations is structured around a video-recorded confession and won the Prix de la Jeunesse at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.
In this intimate and innovative film about artist David Hockney, director Jack Hazan creates an improvisatory narrative-nonfiction hybrid. The result is at once a time capsule of hedonistic gay life in the 1970s and an honest-yet-tender depiction of gay male romance. A true classic, A Bigger Splash is an invaluable view of art history in action.