One of the world’s greatest living painters, the German artist Gerhard Richter, has spent over half a century experimenting with a tremendous range of techniques and ideas, addressing historical crises and mass media representation alongside explorations of chance procedures. Infamously media-shy, he agreed to appear on camera for the first time in 15 years for a 2007 short by filmmaker Corinna Belz called Gerhard Richter’s Window.

Her follow-up, Gerhard Richter Painting, is exactly that—a thrilling document of Richter’s creative process, juxtaposed with intimate conversations, (with his critics, his collaborators, and his American gallerist Marian Goodman) and rare archive material. From our fly-on-the-wall perspective, we watch the 79-year-old create a series of large-scale abstract canvasses, using fat brushes and a massive squeegee to apply (and then scrape off) layer after layer of brightly colored paint. This mesmerizing footage of a highly charged process of creation and destruction, turns Belz’s portrait of an artist into a work of art itself.

“Magnificent and evocative…as close as cinema gets to tracking the impulses and paradoxes of a gifted imagination.” -Village Voice

In English and German with English subtitles.

Directed by Corinna Belz, 2011
97 minutes
Official Site

“An Artist at Work, Looking and Juding,” by Rachel Saltz, The New York Times, Tuesday, March 13, 2012.

Winner of Cannes’ Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize, Elena is a gripping, modern twist on the classic noir thriller. Sixty-something spouses Vladimir and Elena uneasily share his palatial Moscow apartment. He’s a still-virile, wealthy businessman and she’s his dowdy former nurse who has clearly “married up.” Estranged from his own wild-child daughter, Vladimir openly despises his wife’s freeloading son and family. When a sudden illness and an unexpected reunion threaten the dutiful housewife’s potential inheritance, she must hatch a desperate plan. Masterfully crafted by award-winning Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev (Golden Globe nominee The Return) and featuring evocative, Hitchcockian music by Philip Glass, Elena is a subtly stylish exploration of crime, punishment, and human nature.

“A wise and impeccably controlled drama that finds Russian helmer Andrei Zvyagintsev in outstanding form…Zvyagintsev spins a taut, engrossing yarn about a coveted inheritance, cruel class differences, and quietly monstrous misdeeds.” -Variety

In Russian with English subtitles.

Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2011
109 minutes
Official Site

In a small, remote, mountain-top primary school in the Kenyan bush, hundreds of children are jostling for a chance at the free education newly promised by the Kenyan government. One applicant causes astonishment when he knocks on the door of the school. He is Maruge, a Mau Mau veteran in his 80s, who is desperate to learn to read at this stage of his life. He fought for the liberation of his country and now feels he must have the chance of an education so long denied, even if it means sitting in a classroom alongside six-year-olds.

Moved by his passionate plea, head teacher Jane Obinchu supports his struggle to gain admission, facing fierce opposition from parents and officials who don’t want to waste a precious school place on such an old man.

Based on a true story, The First Grader explores the remarkable relationships Maruge builds with his classmates some 80 years his junior with vitality and humor. Through Maruge’s journey, we are taken back to the shocking untold story of British colonial rule 50 years earlier when Maruge fought for the freedom of his country, eventually enduring the extreme and harsh conditions of the British detention camps.

Directed by Justin Chadwick, The First Grader is a heart-warming and inspiring tale of one man’s fight for what he believes is his right in order to overcome the burdens of his past. It is a triumphant testimony to the transforming force of education.

“Irresistible! An inspiring story about the universal human urge to make our lives better.” -indieWIRE

Directed by Justin Chadwick, 2010
103 minutes
Official Site

Rousseau is a bestselling crime novelist from Paris, troubled by writer’s block. Candice Lecoeur is a local beauty, gracing the famous Belle de Jura cheese packaging, and who has gotten it into her head that she might well be the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. The two will meet in the coldest village in France, but only after Candice has been found dead. The case was closed before it even opened and the cause of death declared suicide by sleeping pills. Rousseau is the only one who doesn’t buy it. Reality turns out to be stranger than fiction—and a source of inspiration—as Rousseau uncovers the truth about Candice’s past and her untimely death. Boasting strong lead performances and gorgeous wintertime landscapes, this off-beat mystery breathes fresh life into the thriller genre.

“A hint of Twin Peaks and a large helping of the Coen Brothers in this offbeat, cleverly crafted French thriller…perhaps the closest thing to Fargo to come along in a long while.” -The Hollywood Reporter

In French with English subtitles.

Directed by Gerald Hustache-Mathieu, 2011
102 minutes
Official Site

Portrait of Wally, Egon Schiele’s tender picture of his mistress, Walburga (“Wally”) Neuzil, is the pride of the Leopold Museum in Vienna. But for 13 years the painting was locked up in New York, caught in a legal battle between the Austrian museum and the Jewish family from whom the Nazis seized the painting in 1939.

The documentary Portrait of Wally traces the history of this iconic image—from Schiele’s gesture of affection toward his young lover, to the theft of the painting from Lea Bondi, a Jewish art dealer fleeing Vienna for her life, to the post-war confusion and subterfuge that evoke The Third Man, to the surprise resurfacing of “Wally” on loan to the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan in 1997.

In 1997, when the heirs of art dealer Lea Bondi asked MoMA to hold the painting in New York, MoMA and the Leopold Museum dug in their heels and refused. District Attorney Robert Morgenthau issued a subpoena and launched a criminal investigation. A 13 year battle in court followed, tracking the course of a Holocaust property crime and reopening the wounds of one of the century’s worst tragedies—all at a time when the prices of Egon Schiele’s works rose faster than those of any painter on the art market.

Schiele collector Ronald Lauder found himself caught between several loyalties—he was chairman of MoMA and the founder of the Commission for Art Recovery, an organization committed to returning looted art to the Jews who lost it to the Nazis. Lauder sided with the Museum, and against the Jewish family as did all the museums in New York—even the Jewish Museum.

“An ace legal thriller, spinning a web of shame that snags everything from the Austrian government to America’s most beloved not-for-profits.” —Time Out New York

Directed by Andrew Shea, 2011
102 minutes
Official Site

“The Multidimensional Fate of 1912 Schiele Portrait” by Nicolas Rapold, The New York Times, Thursday, May 10, 2012.