Episode list

Covers the life of Maoist leader Benny Lévy from the French so-called Revolution in 1968 to an Yeshiva in Jerusalem, Israel.

Tells the story of the wonderful and long-lasting friendship between Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs that gave birth to the Beat Generation movement.

Narrator Steve Martin explains Vermeer's fall into obscurity and rebound into worldwide sensation, all while examining themes in his paintings, comparisons to Renaissance masters, and relevant history of Europe's politics and art market.

Of Swiss origin, committed volunteer - and mutilated - in 1914, traveler hungry for adventures, Blaise Cendrars is one of the great writers of the XXth century.

In 1818, Mary Shelley wrote her masterpiece. Ever since, the Creature has become a cultural icon. Delve into Shelley's novel and experience its raw, extraordinary energy spun around the central theme of man's quest for the secret of Life.

In 1906, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso were 24 and 25 years old. The Butte Montmartre is their Parisian sanctuary where artists in need of recognition meet. Braque and Picasso become friends to the point of never leaving each other. For the moment, their paintings do not interest many people; only Apollinaire, then aged 26, and the young gallery owner Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, 22, saw immense potential in them. And in addition to their passion for painting, these four inseparable boys share the same appetite for modernity. Collages, diversions of materials and geometrization of forms: cubism opened the way to abstraction. A revolution initiated by Picasso and Braque, which profoundly changed the course of the history of modern art.

Ambitious painter, draughtsman and brilliant poster artist, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec chronicled his era with insatiable greed. The aristocrat from Albuquerque, friend of Van Gogh and inspired by Degas and Manet, was encumbered by a handicap and an ungainly body, which did not prevent him from frequenting the artists and intellectuals of Parisian life and the Montmatro scene. From the cabarets of Pigalle to the brothels, this caustic and provocative observer casts a glance full of passion and humanity on the women he meets. This documentary traces the journey of a visionary artist with a fierce freedom who reveals, behind the parties and the glitter, the immense solitude of the human condition.

When The Satanic Verses were published in 1988, no one yet perceived the rise of Muslim fundamentalism or its consequences. Not even its author, who will live 30 years under the threat of a fatwa pronounced by Ayatollah Khomeini.

The introduction of 78rpm (revolutions per minute) records around 1898 became the standard format for decades, featuring shellac material and allowing for roughly 3 to 5 minutes of music per side. The innovation started music distribution.

The film tells the cross story of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, the authors of two great anticipation novels: "1984" and "Brave New World".

Born in Berlin in 1896, Lotte Eisner became famous for her passionate involvement in the world of both German and French cinema. In 1936, together with Henri Langlois, she founded the Cinémathèque Française with the goal of saving from destruction films, costumes, sets, posters, and other treasures of the 7th Art. A Jew exiled in Paris, she became a pillar of the capital's cultural scene, where she promoted German cinema.

An evocation of the representations through the centuries of a major figure of European culture, the wandering Jew, popular hero or support of antisemitic theories.

In 1971, Melvin Van Peebles, an independent filmmaker far ahead of his time, released a mind-blowing piece of avant-garde cinema - Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. It broke all the rules, inventing its own grammar and proclaiming its emancipation from cinematic conventions. It turned the Hollywood studio system on its head, creatively sidestepping prevailing constraints and scrounging up alternative financing. Most importantly, Van Peebles splashed Black Power across the big screen in a way people had never seen before, depicting a heroic character who both defies "the man" and illustrates the oppression of Blacks, from slavery to the Watts riots.

Who is Kathryn Bigelow? She's directed blockbusters and cult classics, but her name remains a mystery to many. The Oscar-winning director has been tight-lipped about her personal life, but her films speak for themselves. This documentary explores how Bigelow's films explore themes of violence, masculinity and gender representation - from her early shorts to 'Blue Steel', 'Point Break' and 'The Hurt Locker'.

1933: two visionary directors made a film that eclipsed everything that had gone before. When King Kong was released, it was celebrated as an artistic and technical revolution, becoming one of the first myths created by the young cinema.

A look back at the genesis of Charlie Chaplin's most famous film, "Modern Times": a work of resistance born of adversity, which marks Chaplin's last appearance as the immortal spokesman for the voiceless.