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For the 250th death anniversary of the famous german baroque composer George Philipp Telemann, The Films de la Decouverte decided to film the complete 12 « Quatuors Parisiens » performance.

Lead by Alexis Kossenko’s Les Ambassadeurs, without any audience, in locations in Paris where the masterpiece could have been played at the time in the 18th century. This will be the first ever filmed performance of the masterpiece in its entirety.

Who is Balthus? What does he look like? Balthus, his real name Balthazar Klossowski de Rola, remains an enigma in contemporary art not only on account of his constant hostility to all pictorial movements of his era, but also on account of his personality.

His solitary and secret character kept him out of the media, and there are almost no images or interviews with the man. Indeed, this marginal artist, who had a reputation for being difficult among critics and the public, always refused to talk about his work.
For the first time, at the age of 88, Balthus agreed to let Damian Pettigrew follow him week after week in his life and work in Switzerland, Italy, France and England. Trying to make himself as discreet as possible - but how could he do otherwise? - the director tried to pierce the Balthus enigma for the duration of four seasons. He even managed to access his studio.
In interviews (in particular with his three children), his family and friends further stress the artist's charismatic character and they all seem to want to take a back seat in the face of such a personality.
Photos of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Irving Penn and many previous unexploited documents reveal the richness and complexity of the work of one of the last great painters of the XX century. When he passed away in his chalet in La Rossinière in Vaud, Switzerland on February 18, 2001, Balthus left behind him a totally singular work numbering over three hundred and fifty paintings known to date, a thousand drawings and about fifty sketch books.

Released on DVD by ARTE VIDEO

As part of a Louvre Museum initiative, the worlds' leading experts on Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci, Watteau, Raphael and Poussin joined forces to rediscover and study the masters' works that were de-hung and de-framed for the occasion.

The masterpieces at the Louvre are real survivors!
Throughout the centuries, they have managed to escape pillaging, fire, woodworm, pigment degradation, changing tastes, overpaints, heavy-handed restorations, mutilation by saw, attacks, ageing and oblivion. Some works have lived a clandestine life, under false identity, others, believed to be lost, have suddenly reappeared centuries later.

An exceptional event, even for experts. In these collective investigations, each participant tries to shed light on the enigmas surrounding the works. A unique encounter between man and works of art.

To mark the 100th anniversary of Paul Cezanne's death, the big exhibition 'Cezanne in Provence' opens at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Museum Granet in Aix-en-Provence and celebrates the 'great forerunner of twentieth-century art'.

The documentary offers an insight into the legend of an artist: the Victory of Cezanne. Paul Cezanne was a solitary hero of modern art, a 'contemplative monk' withdrawn to a mountain, and thus the Holy Victory became the symbol of his work as well as the incarnation of the artist.
Cezanne was first known as a 'cursed painter', ignored and disparaged, but later became a 'recognized master', the inventor of abstraction with record-breaking pieces on the art market.
What is most surprising, though, is that the man and his paintings were so little understood at the time.

A new major film about the life and works of one of the most famous artists of the world's heritage.

The name Gustave Courbet inevitably recalls his most striking painting, The Origin of the World. The nude body of a reclining woman, thighs spread apart, with neither head nor feet portrayed. Ahead of its time, it's a painting that counters all prejudice, placing itself beyond all criticism.
Beyond all subjective considerations of his painting, Courbet is an artist who breaks with what went before. He represents a rupture in the history of art as well as in the positioning of the painter in public life.
This film aims at finding what led the painter to focus on realist paintings. It means grasping his painting, exploring colors, substance and the concrete. Following the path that winds through his paintings.

Released on DVD by ARTE Vidéo.

2007 : Selected at DOC FOR SALES (Amsterdam).

A reference in the field of art documentaries, this documentary is undoubtedly the best key to Marc Chagall's artistic world.

Based upon scarce interviews with the artist and those closer to him, it relates Chagall's childhood - which proved so influential upon his work - with unique accuracy and sensibility. The film also illustrates the originality of Chagall's art in relation to the pictorial movements that shaped the beginning of the century - cubism, surrealism, futurism...

It’s the biggest battle over an art museum in the history of the United States, if not the world: is Detroit about to sell its priceless collection of art to save the city from bankruptcy?

The Detroit Institute of Arts is home to one of the country’s finest collections, including masterpieces by Van Gogh, Titian, Van Eyck and Bruegel. But in 2013, the once so prosperous city was declared bankrupt. With administrators threatening to pull the plug on pension payments and health cover for thousands of municipal employees, Detroit could sell the artworks in its museum to raise funds…
This documentary retraces the story of this battle and explores the universal role of art in people’s lives along the way.

The Rembrandt Study Days, dedicated to the 17th century Dutch master and his circle, his pupils, his associates and friends. A splendid collection grouping his major masterpieces, including "Bathsheba at her Bath" and "The Slaughtered Ox".

In the 19th century, it was in France that Rembrandt was the most widely collected and studied. But in the 20th century, the collections and expertise moved to Holland and the Anglo Saxon countries, leaving the French Rembrandts apart in a dormant collection, which the Study Days will be reviving, bringing the works back into the heart of debate.

Today, all major artists have had work disattributed, but Rembrandt remains a special case.
Until the 19th century, there was an explosion in the number of works that were attributed to him. Since then, many works have been sorted: of the 800 Rembrandts recognised back then, only an estimated 300 remain authenticated.

As the various discussions unfold, major questions are raised. Is it a Rembrandt or is it not a Rembrandt? Is such and such a paining, that was for a long time attributed to the master himself, actually a work of a pupil or a copyist? How can one distinguish between real and fake? To restore or not to restore? Should one keep the sheen that has built up over the centuries or take the risk of removing it to expose the true colours beneath?
Just as unique, studying the works, is a panel of experts from all over the world, from the National Galleries in Washington and London, from the Metropolitain Museum in New York, and from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

For two days, the Louvre Museum invited the world's leading experts to come and scrutinise "its Raphaels". An opportunity to discover the artist's greatest masterpieces: "The Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione", the enigmatic "Self Portrait with a Friend", and a large-sized work that has survived five centuries of trauma "Saint Michael Vanquishing Satan".

Raphael was one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance.

Discussion flows freely among the experts, and differences in their analyses emerge. Certain issues, some of which have still not been resolved, divide them.

Two leading experts of Raphael's work, Paul Joannides, Professor in History of Art at the University of Cambridge, and Pierre Curie, Director of the painting unit at the C2RMF restoration department, accompany the debates and share with us their analyses of the major issues at the Raphael Study Days.

For two days, the Louvre Museum invited the world's leading experts to come and scrutinise "their Watteaus", a splendid collection, the masterpieces of which are the "Pilgrimage to Cythera" and the "Gilles".

Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) was one of the most prominent masters of the French school.
But he is also the subject of a paradox. The artist of the "fêtes galantes" achieved recognition during his lifetime, and yet all his major works are surrounded in mystery, and raise unanswered questions as to their origins, meanings and history.

Should the infamous "Pilgrimage to Cythera" be interpreted as an arrival or a departure? For whom and why was the no less infamous "Gilles" painted? Why does an air of melancholy envelop the most light-hearted subjects? Does it come from the artist himself? Or is it just an effect of our modern perspective?

These questions, and many others, have been the subject of much attention. Today, Watteau is one of the French painters that has sparked the most writings and yet he remains one of the most mysterious. Perhaps because he always attempted to disguise his intentions, was voluntarily ambiguous and never revealed his true colours.

The Poussin Study Day at the Beaux-Art Museum in Lyon, on a single work "The Flight into Egypt", the latest acquistion in association with the Louvre Museum, for a total of 17 million euros.

The Louvre Museum reveals the intriguing lesser-known story of "The Flight into Egypt".

This documentary highlights a whole area of the history of works that museums and experts generally prefer to keep quiet - the issue of ownership and authentification, and by extension, price, which propels art history into law manuals and the law courts.

Complaints, prosecutions, trials and convictions are now a daily part of the lives of works of art and of those who are in charge of them.
The issue of expertises and laboratory reports as legal arguments is the main topic of this episode, which is unlike the others in The Hidden Lives of Works of Art series, and examines a different aspect of the material lives of the works.

For two days, the Louvre Museum invited the world's leading experts to come and scrutinise "their da Vincis", a splendid collection, the greatest masterpieces of which are "The Mona Lisa", "La Belle Ferronnière" and "Saint John the Baptist".

The guests have access to the works in exceptional conditions - for two days the da Vinci's are taken down from the walls, taken out of their wooden and glass frames and placed together in a room, on simple easels, in natural light, just as when they were painted. It is a unique encounter between man and works of art.