Within the cultural policy framework of the 1950s, Mikoláš Aleš was, in terms of fine art, equivalent to Bedřich Smetana in music and Alois Jirásek in history and literature. This biopic presents Aleš as an artist of a devoted to his nation and its folk traditions. The movie depicts the most important events of the celebration of “Aleš’s Year” (in honour of the hundredth anniversary of Aleš’s birth), which was conceptually prepared first and foremost by the then education minister Zdeněk Nejedlý, who was also a crucial figure in terms of cultural policy.
Known for his vibrant reinterpretations of classical portraits featuring African-American men, New York-based painter Kehinde Wiley has turned the practice of portraiture on its head and in the process has taken the art world by storm.
British surrealist Leonora Carrington was a key part of the surrealist movement during its heyday in Paris and yet, until recently, remained a virtual unknown in the country of her birth.
Chuck Close, an astounding portrait of one of the world's leading contemporary painters, was one of two parting gifts (her second is a film on Louise Bourgeois) from Marion Cajori, a filmmaker who died recently, and before her time.
Orientalism is a literary and artistic movement born in Western Europe in the 18th century. Through its scale and popularity, throughout the 19th century, it marked the interest and curiosity of artists and writers for the countries of the West (the Maghreb) or the Levant (the Middle East).
An American soldier stationed in England is ready to go on his honeymoon with his new wife when his ex-wife, a gorgeous blonde, shows up and insists that they're still married.
Swindler in jail devises a scheme to blackmail the family of recently deceased people, threatening to tell supposedly incriminating facts about their dead relatives' lives.
"The Man from Cairo", a Michaeldavid production for distribution by Lippert, with Ray Enright the only credited director on the film print, finds Mike Canelli, the man from Cairo, nosing around Algiers with mystery surrounding the people he meets and the things he does and has done to him, all deriving from the war-time theft of $100,000,000 in gold which lies somewhere in the adjacent desert.
After being framed for a murder he didn't commit, Tom Penney (Donald Houston) serves his time and returns to his rural English home to establish a quiet life.
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