The Way of the Ink

A documentary about the rival gangs Mara 18 and Mara Salvatrucha, originating in Los Angeles but terrorizing El Salvador. It explores their origins as possible founding myths of organized crime in a globalized world.

A documentary film based on the art of tattooing, tattoo artists and their clients, with interviews exploring the fascination for, and the reasons behind, choosing to be tattooed. The film builds up to long climactic scene, often since replicated in other films on the subject, featuring tattooed bodies displayed as art objects.

In March 2018, elite tattoo artists from across the globe came together in Chattanooga, Tennessee to celebrate the intersection of literary fantasy and artistic magic at the inaugural Literary Ink convention. “Literary Ink: A Wizard’s Journey” explores the lives, dreams, techniques and artistic inspiration of four of these Tattoo Wizards.

The anti-Slumdog Millionaire in documentary form, "Buzz" charts the tumultuous rise of India's most famous tattoo artist as he struggles to overcome the demons of his poverty-stricken childhood through art.

An exploration of how the once taboo art form has become socially acceptable.

Click for full movie details & trailers.

Click for full movie details & trailers.

Click for full movie details & trailers.

His work illustrates people. Densha Tattoo reflects on craft, inspiration and the scene. — What is the essence of a human being? One stitch at a time. A portrait about the tattoo artist.

D'Inked is a documentary about the development of laser tattoo removal technology and how it has changed the culture of tattoos. The film follows a man named Jake on his 5-year journey through the process of removing a full color half sleeve tattoo. The film also features interviews with prominent figures in the tattoo and laser removal communities discussing the technological, physical and ethical realities of removing what has always been considered a definition of permanent.

Documentary based on interviews during the Birmingham Tattoo Convention in the early '90s.

Click for full movie details & trailers.

Click for full movie details & trailers.

Click for full movie details & trailers.

Stories of people who regard augmenting their bodies as a way of life, whether for artistic reasons or out of pure vanity.

A terrible accident leaves a young soldier horribly scarred, but his rediscovery of art heals his wounded soul, in this brief but powerful animated documentary.

A family story that reveals the fate of the Armenian women driven out of Ottoman Turkey during the First World War. The story of "Grandma's Tattoos" is a personal film about what happened to many Armenian women during the genocide In 1919, just at the end of World War I, the Allied forces reclaimed 90,819 Armenian young girls and children who, during the war years, were forced to become prostitutes to survive, or had given birth to children after forced or arranged marriages or rape. Many of these women were tattooed as a sign that they belonged to abductor. European and American missionaries organized help and saved thousands of refugees who were later scattered all over the world to places like Beirut, Marseille, and Fresno.Director Suzanne Khardalian

A short Documentary about Tattoo Artist Dustin Stephenson and his Struggle´s to survive during the first COVID-19 Pandemic in Summer 2020.

Ang Babae sa Likod ng Mambabatok unravels the multiple layers of the almost mythological figure-living legend, Fang Od, a 92 year old woman who has been called the ‘Last [Traditional] Tattoo Artist of Kalinga.’ The first layer of the story is the one she is most famous for-being a tattoo artist. At her eyes, she continues to exhibit sharpness and precision in the very demanding art and skill of tattooing. The second layer shows her many stories as woman who has reached the age of looking back. She regales us with stories of her many suitors, of her youth, the dancing and the feasts. She also looks back with not just a tinge of regret that she never married nor had children of her own. Her body covered in tattoos is a landscape on its own mirroring the map of a woman who has chosen wittingly or unwittingly a road diverging from convention and in the process became a culture-bearer.

Once associated with gangsters, in South Korea tattoos still divide opinion. Whilst they have grown in popularity, only licensed doctors can officially ink skin. So in the thriving underground scene in Seoul, many artists are, in effect, working illegally. BBC 100 Women meets the women tattoo artists who are navigating this precarious work and those fighting to overturn the law so that artists no longer live in fear of being reported.