Enjoy this welcome addition to après-ski: a feast of sight and sound every Friday afternoon at 5:30 before cocktails

Friday 19 January at 5:30PM
The Giacomettis, 2023
In German with English subtitles
The rugged Swiss mountain valley of Bregaglia has brought forth an entire dynasty of artists: the Giacomettis. Alberto (1901–1966) revolutionised the world of art with his slender sculptures. Before him, his father Giovanni (1868–1933) was an impressionist of the first hour. What is it about this valley that makes it the birthplace of so many artists? Director Susanna Fanzun traces the footsteps of this extraordinary family.

Friday 26 January at 5:30PM
Dora Maar a pesar de picaso (Dora Maar despite Picasso), 2014
In Spanish with English subtitles
This documentary sheds new light on the figure of Dora Maar (1907–1997), pictured above, by establishing her artistic autonomy from the overwhelming presence of Picasso to whom she was linked in a long and troubled love affair between 1936 and 1946. In an in-depth interview, Victoria Combalía, curator of the exhibition held at Palazzo Fortuny in Venice in 2014 and biographer of Dora Maar, traces her life and work in the artistic context of surrealism and photography in 1930s France. The account is embellished by the testimonies of other people connected with avant-garde art who knew Maar well. A recluse in her Paris apartment at rue de Savoie in the 6th arrondissement, she left a treasure trove of works by Picasso at her death. With no heirs whatsoever, a genealogical firm located missing beneficiaries of her estate which was sold at auction.

Tickets Ciné-Theater Gstaad box office and online

cine-theater.ch

Friday 2 February at 5:30PM
Gerhard Richter Painting, 2012
In German with English subtitles

Born in 1932, the German artist Gerhard Richter has spent over half a century experimenting with a tremendous range of techniques and ideas, addressing historical crises and mass media representation alongside explorations of chance procedures. The German artist Gerhard Richter has spent over half a century experimenting with a tremendous range of techniques and ideas, addressing historical crises and mass media representation alongside explorations of chance procedures. Gerhard Richter Painting is a thrilling document of Richter’s creative process, juxtaposed with intimate conversations with his critics, his collaborators as well as rare archival material.

Friday 9 February at 5:30PM
Frida, 2002
In English

In this biographical drama, Frida Kahlo’s (1907–1954) harrowing life story, her life-altering injury, tempestuous marriage twice to celebrated Mexican muralist Diego Rivera (1886–1957), and the way she metabolised them through her art, come to life. Once seated at a dinner in Detroit next to Henry Ford (1863–1947) – founder of Ford Motor Company and architect of the assembly-line technique of mass production – she preached the virtues of communism. Salma Hayek, the Mexican-born wife of François-Henri Pinault, portrays Kahlo. Full of the erratic colours characteristic of Kahlo’s work and a soundtrack of mainly Mexican singers and song writers, this film features the tableaux vivants technique.

Friday 16 February at 5:30PM
Painting, Smoking, Eating – The Painter Philip Guston, 2023
In English

Witty, lively, absurd and always on the pulse of their time, Philip Guston’s (1913–1980) paintings touch deeply and are more current than ever. Painting, Smoking, Eating – The Painter Philip Guston by Marion Kollbach follows his career spanning half a century, marked by his struggles with the material as well as American society and relentlessly searching for truth to bear witness. It is a personal portrait that offers the opportunity to discover more deeply one of the seminal painters of American modernism through the eyes of his daughter, friends and contemporary artists.

Friday 23 February at 5:30PM
Fabio Mauri – Ritratto a luce solida (Portrait in solid light), 2016
In Italian with English subtitles

This documentary illustrates Fabio Mauri’s (1926–2009) artistic and intellectual career and also explores his cinematic and preformative works, such as 1971’s Che cosa e’ il Fascismo (What is Fascism). The film is an intimate portrait of an artist in search of spirituality and morality, a portrait of a man with a painful past and a passion for politics and teaching. Ritratto a Luce Solida combines interviews and photographic material from the family archive and provides an insight into Mauri’s life and working methods.

ALAN NAZAR IPEKIAN