Ben Lewis
2021Blowing Up Paradise
Ben Lewis
Blowing Up Paradise uses color archival footage to chronicle France's explosion of various nuclear devices, in violation of the international test ban treaty, from the first test in 1966 to the last in 1995. Interviews with former and current French government officials, scientists, and nuclear advisors.
Blowing Up Paradise
The Great Contemporary Art Bubble
Ben Lewis
Ben Lewis
On September 15th 2008, the day of the the collapse of Lehmans, the worst financial news since 1929, Damien Hirst sold over £60 million of his art, in an auction at Sotheby’s that would total £111 million over two days. It was the peak of the contemporary art bubble, the greatest rise in the financial value of art in the history of the world. One art critic and film-maker was banned by Sotheby’s and Hirst from attending this historic auction: Ben Lewis.
The Great Contemporary Art Bubble
Poor Us: An Animated History of Poverty
Ben Lewis
Shaun Parkes
The poor may always have been with us, but attitudes towards them have changed. Beginning in the Neolithic Age, Ben Lewis's film takes us through the changing world of poverty. You go to sleep, you dream, you become poor through the ages. And when you awake, what can you say about poverty now? There are still very poor people, to be sure, but the new poverty has more to do with inequality...
Poor Us: An Animated History of Poverty
Falciani's Tax Bomb: The Man Behind the Swiss Leaks
Ben Lewis
Documentary - In 2008, Hervé Falciani left his job at the Swiss branch of HSBC, taking with him - without authorisation - a hard-drive containing a database of 130,000 named bank accounts, held by citizens from 180 countries. This database found its way into the hands of many world governments. The purpose of this film is to examine the tax debate in a critical and engaging but also a balanced way. - Peer Steinbrück, Hervé Falciani, Michael Lauber
Falciani's Tax Bomb: The Man Behind the Swiss Leaks
Google and the World Brain
Ben Lewis
Brendan Price, Nicholas Chapman
The most ambitious project ever conceived on the Internet: Google's master plan to scan every book in the world and the people trying to stop them. Google says they are building a library for mankind, but some say they also have other intentions.
Google and the World Brain
Baader-Meinhof: In Love with Terror
Ben Lewis
In October 1977, the leadership of the German leftwing terrorist group Baader-Meinhof, died in a German high-security prison. Their apparent suicides hailed the end of a long and bloody struggle to start a revolution in one of the world's richest democracies. 25 years on In Love With Terror traces this astonishing story through extraordinary interviews with former group members, never-before seen archive footage, secret police reports and obscure government files.
Baader-Meinhof: In Love with Terror
Chancers: The Great Gangster Film Fraud
Ben Lewis
Tony Carling, Paul Knight
Documentary about a bankrupt Jordanian entrepreneur and an unemployed Irish actress who hatch a plan to scam £2.5m off the British taxman by faking the production of a £20m movie. But they are found out, arrested and then bailed. While out on bail, they decide to prove their innocence by actually making a film. They hire a former nightclub bouncer, now a self-made micro-budget gangster film director. In 2011, Paul Knight makes their movie for under £100,000 with a cast of soap and gangster movie stars including Danny Midwinter, Marc Bannerman and Loose Women's Andrea McLean. The film's title is A Landscape of Lies. But the cinematic alibi does not convince the jury when the trial runs in 2013. The producers are convicted of tax fraud and given long sentences.
Chancers: The Great Gangster Film Fraud
The Beatles, Hippies & Hells Angels: Inside the Crazy World of Apple
Ben Lewis
Peter Coyote, Joey Molland
The fascinating inside story of Apple Corps, The Beatles' very own multimedia corporation that became one of the most colourful, outlandish and chaotic companies that ever existed.
The Beatles, Hippies & Hells Angels: Inside the Crazy World of Apple
Gursky World
Ben Lewis, Andreas Gursky
In 2002, documentarian made his first "Art Safari" style film about the German photographer Andreas Gursky. It contains the ‘famous’ ‘Is it Gursky? in Reading’ ‘sketch’ and the European languages ‘sketch’. The documentary is the first art comedy documentary by Ben Lewis, featuring 20 years of gags about the art world stored up and released in this film.
Gursky World