This month’s slate of films collects different stories about artistic creation, changing industries and consumerism, examining the gulf between the person as an economy entity and a human being. Whether making or buying art, or using it to form a national identity, examining the rise of the bespoke product or how algorithms have reshaped politics and the advertising industry, there is a wealth of information here about how the world is changing and our role in it.
The Price of Everything
Nathaniel Kahn’s dazzling journey through the elite global art market makes for a fascinating study of creativity and commerce. Artists, dealers, gallery owners, auctioneers, collectors, scholars and critics come together in studios, apartments and auction rooms to make sense of this curious microcosm of the global economy; a political construct where everything can be bought and sold.
Bespoke
Artisanal design has changed the face of almost every industry, from beer and coffee to shoes and aeroplanes. Andrew Sully’s three-part series looks at the creators who are going back to basics and the designers using cutting-edge technology to make the industrial personal. Bespoke takes the viewer around the world to meet the people driving the change and to discover if artisanal design is a temporary novelty or a culturally driven industrial revolution.
The Brink
Former White House strategist Steve Bannon was branded a “kingmaker” after the Republican Party’s surprise election win in 2016, but even before then his role in motivating far-right groups in the US and Europe has been a source of much speculation. Director Alison Klayman follows Bannon through US midterm and European parliamentary elections as he attempts to empower far-right parties while balancing the roles of political victim and manipulator.
Hannah Gadsby's Oz
Comedian and art scholar Hannah Gadsby may be best known for her Emmy-winning Netflix sensation Nanette, but she is never funnier nor more incisive than when dismantling the Australian identity via the analysis of art. In this three-part series, Gadsby takes the viewer through Australia’s most notable galleries to retell the stories behind artworks long prized for their “authenticity”.
You're Soaking in it
Advertising might be inescapable, with its evolution from jingles and billboards to online impressions accompanied by a massive increase in data and technology allowing personalisation to a previously unimaginable degree. Unlike the artful pitch of Don Draper in the TV series Mad Men, director Scott Harper looks at the new titans of the industry: the inventor of the pop-up advertisement, the hoarders of metrics and the developers able to monitor eye movements and emotions.
