Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United States but that also includes examples from many countries. As a trend, "land art" expanded boundaries of art by the materials used and the siting of the works. The materials used were often the materials of the Earth, including the soil, rocks, vegetation, and water found on-site, and the sites of the works were often distant from population centers. Though sometimes fairly inaccessible, photo documentation was commonly brought back to the urban art gallery.
Spiral Jetty is an earthwork sculpture constructed in April 1970 that is considered to be the most important work of American sculptor Robert Smithson. Smithson documented the construction of the sculpture in a 32-minute color film also titled Spiral Jetty. Built on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake near Rozel Point in Utah entirely of mud, salt crystals, and basalt rocks, Spiral Jetty forms a 1,500-foot-long (460 m), 15-foot-wide (4.6 m) counterclockwise coil jutting from the shore of the lake.
Woody Allen has acted in, directed, and written many films starting in the 1960s. His first film was the 1965 comedy What's New Pussycat?, which featured him as both writer and performer. Allen felt that his New Yorker humor was mismatched with the director Clive Donner's British sensibility, and decided he wished to direct all future films from his material. He was unable to prevent the production of films by other directors from previous stage plays of his to which he had already sold the film rights, notably 1972's successful film Play it Again, Sam from the 1969 play of the same title directed by Herbert Ross.
Walter Joseph De Maria was an American artist, sculptor, illustrator and composer, who lived and worked in New York City. Walter de Maria's artistic practice is connected with minimal art, conceptual art, and land art of the 1960s.
James Crump is an American film director, writer, producer, art historian and curator. His films include Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe; Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art; and Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco.
Nicholas Jarecki is an American film director, producer, and writer best known for his 2012 feature film Arbitrage.
Virginia Dwan is an American art collector, art patron, philanthropist, visionary and founder of the Dwan Light Sanctuary in Montezuma, New Mexico. She is the former owner and executive director of Dwan Gallery, Los Angeles (1959–1967) and Dwan Gallery New York (1965–1971), a contemporary art gallery closely identified with the American movements of Minimalism, Conceptual Art, and Earthworks.
Life Itself is a 2014 American biographical documentary film about Chicago film critic Roger Ebert, directed by Steve James and produced by Zak Piper, James and Garrett Basch. The film is based on Ebert's 2011 memoir of the same name. It premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was an official selection at the 67th Cannes Film Festival. The 41st Telluride Film Festival hosted a special screening of the film on August 28, 2014. Magnolia Pictures released the film theatrically in the United States and simultaneously via video on demand platforms on July 4, 2014.
The Battered Bastards of Baseball is a 2014 documentary film about the Portland Mavericks, a defunct minor league baseball team in Portland, Oregon. They played five seasons in the Class A-Short Season Northwest League, from 1973 through 1977. Owned by actor Bing Russell, the Mavericks were an independent team, without the affiliation of a parent team in the major leagues. The title is from a line in Jim Bouton's 1970 book Ball Four: "Us battered bastards of baseball are the biggest customers of the U.S. Post Office, forwarding-address department."
The Wolfpack is a 2015 American documentary film, directed by Crystal Moselle. It is about the Angulo family, who homeschooled and raised their six children in the confinement of their apartment in the Lower East Side of New York City. The film premiered on January 25, 2015 at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize.
Cartel Land is a 2015 American documentary film directed by Matthew Heineman about the Mexican Drug War, especially vigilante groups fighting Mexican drug cartels. The film focuses on Tim "Nailer" Foley, the leader of Arizona Border Recon, and Dr. José Mireles, a Michoacán-based physician who leads the Autodefensas. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2016.
Sarah-Violet Bliss is an American screenwriter and director best known for her movie Fort Tilden and the TV series Search Party.
A Lego Brickumentary is a 2014 Danish-American documentary film co-directed by Kief Davidson and Daniel Junge, focused on the Danish construction toy Lego. The film was released on July 31, 2014. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who praised its appeal but criticized the promotional tone of the film. It grossed over $100,000 against a production budget of $1 million, although it fared better in home media sales.
Hitchcock/Truffaut is a 2015 French-American documentary film directed by film critic Kent Jones about François Truffaut's book on Alfred Hitchcock, Hitchcock/Truffaut, and its impact on cinema.
Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe is a 2007 American documentary film directed by James Crump. The film chronicles the symbiotic relationship between Sam Wagstaff, an American museum curator and collector of fine art, and Robert Mapplethorpe, the American fine art photographer whose controversial images were at the center of debate about public funding for the arts and the culture wars of the late 1980s. The film also explores the relationship both men shared with poet/musician Patti Smith in the New York art world of the 1970s.
Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds is a 2016 documentary about the relationship between entertainer Debbie Reynolds and her daughter, actress and writer Carrie Fisher. It premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and on January 7, 2017, on HBO.
Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco is a 2017 American documentary film directed by James Crump. This feature documentary concerns the Puerto Rican-born, Harlem and Bronx-raised fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez and his influential work and milieu in New York and Paris between 1968 and 1973. With original interviews and vintage footage, the film also features Lopez's personal partner and longtime creative collaborator, Juan Ramos, Bill Cunningham, Jessica Lange, Grace Jones, Bob Colacello, Grace Coddington, Yves Saint Laurent, Joan Juliet Buck and Karl Lagerfeld among numerous others.
The Dissident is a 2020 American documentary film directed and produced by Bryan Fogel. It follows the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi and Saudi Arabia's effort to control international dissent.
Time is a 2020 American documentary film produced and directed by Garrett Bradley. It follows Sibil Fox Richardson, fighting for the release of her husband, Rob, who is serving a 60-year prison sentence for engaging in an armed bank robbery.
Dear Mr. Brody is a 2021 documentary film directed and produced by Keith Maitland. The film centers on letters written to Michael James Brody Jr. from the general public in response to Brody Jr.'s announcement that he would give away his inherited fortune to those in need.
