D'Inked: A Tattoo Removal Documentary

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.

Horitoshi Sensei is one of the last accomplished masters of irezumi, the art of traditional Japanese tattoo. Pascal is a young French journalist specialized in tattoo who discovered Horitoshi’s designs in a magazine and felt in love with them. Although he does not have much money, Pascal decided to go to Tokyo to have all his back tattooed by Horitoshi. When the film starts, he is at his fourth trip, but his tattoo is far from being finished. Pascal is our guide in this travel to discover irezumi.

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

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Click for full movie details & trailers.

Inuit traditional face tattoos have been forbidden for a century, and almost forgotten. Director Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, together with long-time friend and activist Aaju Peter, is determined to uncover the mystery and meaning behind this beautiful ancient tradition. Together they embark on an adventure through Arctic communities, speaking with elders and recording the stories of a once popularized female artform. Central to the film is Arnaquq-Baril’s personal debate over whether or not to get tattood herself. With candour and humour, she welcomes us into her world, to experience firsthand the complex emotions that accompany her struggle. Past meets present in this intimate account of one woman’s journey towards self-empowerment and cultural understanding.

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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.

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

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In the South Seas, Samoan village life is portrayed with a painterly eye. Blending ethnographic detail with a romanticized 'Gauguin idyll', the film celebrates daily rituals, communal traditions, and the passage into adulthood, suffused pride of beauty and pride of strength.

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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.

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.