American art megastar Julian Schnabel (born 1951) has made a metier of both painting and film, and while he is equally acclaimed for his achievements in each of these disciplines, the works have often been kept separate in the public eye. Yet Schnabel's painting has drawn on cinematic imagery for years, often connecting otherwise disparate work via this theme, and his award-winning films have drawn on art both formally and as subject matter-most famously in the 1996 hit "Basquiat." Schnabel himself resists categorization: "I make art," he says,"whether it is painting, writing, photography or making a movie." This survey of Schnabel's career to date presents the artist's painterly production, from the 1970s through to the present, juxtaposing his large-scale paintings with his numerous critically acclaimed movies-"Basquiat" (1996), "Before Night Falls" (2000), "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (2007) and his newest film "Miral," which addresses the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The complete scripts of each of these movies are featured, punctuated with stills chosen by Schnabel. Published for the Art Gallery of Ontario's 2010 survey, "Julian Schnabel: Art and Film" is the first appraisal of how Schnabel works across media, bridging painting, writing and cinema.
Julian Schnabel was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. His first solo show was at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston in 1976, but it was with his 1979 exhibition at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York that Schnabel first asserted his presence as a figurehead for new possibilities in painting. Retrospectives of his work have been mounted by Tate Gallery, London (1983), the Whitney Museum of American Art (1987) and Museo Nacionale Centro de Arte Reina Sophia, Madrid (2004), among many others. He made his cinematic debut in 1996 with his account of the life of Jean-Michel Basquiat, which starred Jeffrey Wright, David Bowie, Gary Oldman and Dennis Hopper. "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" earned him Best Director both at the Cannes Film Festival and the Golden Globes, and an Academy Award nomination in this same category.

Live stage performance of Lou Reed's 1973 album, recorded at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York over five nights in 2007. When it was first released, 'Berlin', Reed's third solo outing, received a critical mauling, especially since it followed his earlier triumph, 'Transformer', with its hit single 'Walk On The Wild Side'. 'Berlin' is a tragic rock opera which deals with the drug-addled relationship of a doomed couple, and all its attendant depression and angst. The use of orchestral arrangements, horn sections and top session musicians alienated a large section of Reed's fanbase on release. However, over time the album has been re-evaluated, and is now regarded as one of Reed's best solo works, ranking 344 on 'Rolling Stone' magazine's 500 greatest albums of all-time.

Julian Schnabel directs this drama about an orphaned Palestinian girl growing up in the aftermath of the first Arab-Israeli war. Hind Husseini (Hiam Abbass) sets up an orphanage following the partition of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 that soon becomes home to almost 2,000 children. Seven-year-old Miral (Freida Pinto) ends up in the orphanage following her mother's death. Brought up there in an atmosphere of peace and stability, she is unaware of the troubles that surround her until she goes to teach at a refugee camp at the age of 17. There, she finds herself torn between the fight for the future of her people and Mama Hind's belief that education is the only possible route to peace.