12.12.2025
How to become a star? | New collection on ARTS.FILM
Image from the film Viva Niki -The Spirit of Niki de Saint Phalle by Michiko Matsumoto
Because it’s always worth drawing inspiration from the very best, our collection designed to help you learn how to become a star brings Niki de Saint Phalle (Viva Niki – The Spirit of Niki de Saint Phalle, directed by Michiko Matsumoto), Yayoi Kusama (Kusama: Infinity, directed by Heather Lenz), and even Glenn Gould (Glenn Gould, directed by Roman Kroitor and Wolf Koenig) right to your screen.
New on ARTS.FILM, the documentary Tiny Tim: King for a Day, directed by Johan von Sydow, retraces the journey of a 1960s American figure who briefly touched stardom. Tiny Tim left a lasting mark on his era with his extraordinary persona; David Bowie even described him as his greatest influence. Beyond his ability to sing in falsetto, it was Tiny Tim’s talent for embracing and cultivating his uniqueness that propelled him forward.
That’s just the first piece of advice… among many others you’ll discover while watching the films in our collection!
Tiny Tim: King for a Day - Johan Von Sydow (NEW)
Viva Niki ‑The Spirit of Niki de Saint Phalle — Michiko Matsumoto (NEW)
Barbra Streisand, naissance d’une diva - Nicolas Maupied
Paul Newman, l’intranquille — Jean Lauritano
Kusama : Infinity — Heather Lenz
Jodie Foster — Hollywood dans la peau - Camille Juza, Yal Sadat
Over the top — Justine Cappelle
BOOKANIMA : Andy Warhol - Shon Kim
Glenn Gould — Wolf Koenig, Roman Kroitor
NEW THIS WEEK
Synopsis
Narrated by Weird Al Yankovic, Tiny Tim: King for a Day is a biographical documentary about a musician who is not only known for songs like “Tip Toe Through The Tulips,” but also for his personality, which paved the way for other rock stars such as David Bowie, Prince, Iggy Pop, and Boy George.
Considered an outcast from an early age, Herbert Khary rose to fame in the role of Tiny Tim, a true fairy tale. Seen as a freak by many of his peers, Tiny Tim left no one indifferent. His wedding on The Carson Show was watched by more than 45 million Americans, and his queer personality was celebrated by figures such as Bob Dylan, Marilyn Manson, and Lady Gaga. There were plans and hopes for Tiny Tim to become a lasting star, not just an entertainment figure, but one man ruined those plans: Tiny Tim.
Exclusive access to Tiny Tim’s diaries, playful and powerful animations, and interviews with his family and friends make this film not only a captivating portrait of one of the strangest stars the world has ever seen, but also a psychological drama, examining the boundary between madness and generosity.
Tiny Tim: a voice too soft not to be worrying
An iconic and unclassifiable artist, Tiny Tim left his mark on the collective imagination with his crystal-clear falsetto and almost childlike ukulele playing. But it was his death on stage, after performing one of his favorite songs for the last time, that sealed his status as a legendary figure. An artist whose life and death seem to belong to the same strange drama.
Since then, his song “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” has haunted contemporary cinema. Used memorably in James Wan’s Insidious, it has become a popular sound motif for horror directors seeking to create that precise shift, where innocence slips away, sweetness turns sour, and nursery rhymes suddenly become disturbing.
Tiny Tim’s legacy lies in this tension: a luminous voice that became one of the most effective tools for creating unease. A presence that, thirty years after his death, continues to resonate in works that explore the boundary between vulnerability and fear.
Viva Niki ‑The Spirit of Niki de Saint Phalle
Synopsis
French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle is famous for her Nanas, vibrantly colored female sculptures. These iconic figures, like all of Niki’s works, reflect her boundless creativity.
Unpublished photographs and more recent images, shot in Europe, America, and Japan, reveal the life and legacy of this multidisciplinary artist. Her portraits and works have been immortalized by Japanese director Michiko Matsumoto since 1981. This documentary, seen through the eyes of an artist, invites us to discover in depth masterpieces such as the Tarot Garden in Tuscany (Italy), a monumental collection of works that took more than 20 years to complete.
A word from director Michiko Matsumoto:
” I first met Niki de Saint Phalle in 1981, during a visit to her home, a former country inn south of Paris. When the door of the stone building opened, a slender woman appeared, a radiant smile on her lips. Unlike her dynamic and imposing works, Niki herself was graceful in stature, exuding an aura of delicate mystery.
As a photographer, I had followed the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s in Japan, Europe, and the United States, and had published the photography book Women Come Alive. In the early 1980s, I began taking portraits of women artists around the world. This personal quest led me to Niki de Saint Phalle’s door.My initial intention was to take a simple portrait, but when she told me about her Tarot Garden project, I was fascinated by the scale and fantasy of her universe. From then on, I followed her work for more than ten years, across Europe.
For Niki, the Nanas embodied joyful, free women. But before reaching this colorful peak, her work went through a period marked by anger. Her Shootings, radical performances from the early 1960s, were acts of protest against all forms of oppression, whether political or personal. Using a rifle, she shot at complex assemblages of wood and plaster, in which spray paint cans and bags of pigments were hidden, causing chromatic explosions. In 1963 and 1964, she also created figurative reliefs denouncing the roles imposed on women by society.
From the mid-1960s onwards, her female sculptures began to blossom into more rounded forms, with softened contours and bright colors. The heroic Nanas were born.
(…)
Throughout her life, Niki de Saint Phalle invited us to enter the vast and vibrant space of her imagination, with unbridled artistic freedom of expression. Even today, through her work, she teaches us the pure joy of creation, the joy of living.
Through this film, I want to convey the message that Niki carried throughout her life. “
- Michiko Matsumoto
