Synopsis: CÉZANNE ET MOI traces the parallel paths of the lives, careers and passionate friendship of post-impressionist painter Paul Cézanne and novelist Emile Zola. The two boys grew up in Aix-en-Provence. Emile was fatherless and poor. Paul came from a wealthy family. As young men, dreaming of glory and beautiful women, they left the south to conquer the art scene in Paris. Soon Emile had it all, success, money, and the perfect wife, and embraced the very bourgeoisie he mocked in his books. Meanwhile, Cézanne rejected the Parisian scene to focus only on his work, ignored by his peers and the establishment.

Synopsis: Chris Burden guaranteed his place in art history in the 1970s with a series of often dangerous and at times stomach-churning performances. After having himself shot in Santa Ana, confined to a locker for five days in Irvine and crucified on the back of a VW bug in Venice, Burden reinvented himself as the creator of truly mesmerizing installations and sculptures, from a suspended gigantic flywheel that seemingly spins on its own to an assemblage of illuminated, antique streetlights outside the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Urban Light (2008), which has become one of Los Angeles’ most photographed and iconic symbols. In BURDEN, directors Timothy Marrinan and Richard Dewey (Beams X Gravity, Beam Drop)  look at the artist’s work and private life with an innovative mix of still-potent videos of his ‘70s performances, personal films and audio recordings, latter day footage at his Topanga Canyon studio, and comments from friends, fellow students, colleagues and critics, all peppered with Burden’s thoughts and musings from throughout the years.