7th August 2011; BAL (Honey)

Bal (Honey)
A film by Semih Kaplanoglu
Country:Turkey
Year 2010
Runtime: 103 minutes
Turkish with English subtitles
7th August 2011; 5.45pm
Perks Mini Theater
Perks School

Turkish filmmaker Semih Kaplanoglu’s Bal (Honey) fall under the spell of this contemplative drama about a boy (Altas) and his dad (Besikçioglu), a rural beekeeper. Bal walks a fine line between affecting, character-based drama and long-take academicism, nearly always coming down on the side of the former thanks to the film's close alignment with the viewpoint of its preteen protagonist.

The plot of Bal (Honey) is simple and incidental: the straightforward story of a young boy’s all encompassing love for his father and his weariness of everyone else.

Set in the impossibly lush mountains along the Black Sea coast of northeast Turkey, it could have been a nature film, made only to capture the stunning mist-bathed surroundings. But perhaps it’s a tribute to Yusuf (Bora Altas), the seven-year-old protagonist with the unnerving presence of a pensive cub.

Yusuf doesn’t utter a word to his mother (Tulin Ozen), stutters when called upon in class, and regards everything around him with bemused silence. But his father (Erdal Besikcioglu)—a beekeeper who plants his hives high up in the soaring trees—wisely cajoles the boy to speak in whispers, and he responds in the same hushed tones.

Their relationship pushes the two into a private space within their already isolated landscape. When his father doesn’t return from a trip into the woods, Yusuf and his mother go looking for him. If he isn’t found, Yusuf might lose his only connection to the world.

Bal revels in the beauty and sweetness of children and nature. Bal, which resembles more of a fairytale and feels centuries away from the modern world.

Perhaps it should be treated like a two-hour meditation for which a patient mood and disposition are absolutely critical. And like a meditation, the effects may only be palpable after the spell is broken and the movie ends.
(Source:Internet)

Semih Kaplanoglu

Semih Kaplanoğlu (born 1963 in İzmir, Turkey)is a Turkish playwright, film director and producer. He graduated from the Cinema and Television Section of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Dokuz Eylül University in his hometown. He became an assistant cameraman for two award-winning documentary films.

Later, Kaplanoğlu wrote the script and directed a television series with 52 episodes, which became successful at the channels Show TV and InterStar. The first film he directed, Herkes Kendi Evinde (Away From Home) won many awards participating at international film festivals. Kaplanoğlu's second feature film Meleğin Düşüşü (Angel's Fall) premiered at the 2006 Berlin International Film Festival and found wide interest by international film critics and audience.

His film Yumurta (Egg) brought many international awards for best film, best director, best screenplay.He founded his own film production company Kaplan Film. Its first feature film Egg was a co-production with Greece. Kaplanoğlu's film Süt (Milk) was released in Germany in January 2010, which with Yumurta (Egg) and the film Bal (Honey) produced in 2010, forms a trilogy called Yusuf Üçlemesi (Yusuf's Trilogy), named after the main character Yusuf of the films.

His 2010 film, Bal won the Golden Bear at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival.

16th July 2011; Documentaries on Art : ANDY WARHOL

CONTEMPLATE & KONANGAL

present

Documentaries on Art

Contemplate Art Gallery
Opp. PSG Krishnammal College
Avanashi Road

16th July 2011 ; 5.45pm


Pop art

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art. Pop removes the material from its context and isolates the object, or combines it with other objects, for contemplation. The concept of pop art refers not as much to the art itself as to the attitudes that led to it. Pop art employs aspects of mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects. It is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism, as well as an expansion upon them.And due to its utilization of found objects and images it is similar to Dada. Pop art is also associated with the artists' use of mechanical means of reproduction or rendering techniques.

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was born Andrew Warhola August 6, 1928. Born to Slovak immigrants, he was reared in a working class suburb of Pittsburgh. From an early age, Warhol showed an interest in photography and drawing, attending free classes at Carnegie InstituteProphetically, his first assignment was for Glamour magazine for an article titled "Success is a Job in New York."

Throughout the nineteen fifties, Warhol enjoyed a successful career as a commercial artist, winning several commendations from the Art Director's Club and the American Institute of Graphic Arts. During this period, he shortened his name to "Warhol." In 1952, the artist had his first solo exhibition at the Hugo Gallery, exhibiting Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote. Subsequently, Warhol's work was exhibited in several venues throughout the fifties including his first group show at The Museum of Modern Art in 1955. In 1953 the artist produced his first illustrated book, A is an Alphabet and Love is a Pink Cake, which he gave to his clients and associates. With a burgeoning career as an illustrator, he formed Andy Warhol Enterprises in 1957.1960 marked a turning point in Warhol's prolific career. He painted his first works based on comics and advertisements, enlarging and transferring the source images onto his canvases with an opaque projector. In 1961, Warhol showed his paintings, Advertisement, Little King, Superman, Before and After, and Superman, Before and After, and Saturday's Popeye in a window display of Bonwit Teller department store. Appropriating images from popular culture, Warhol created many paintings that remain icons of 20th-century art including the Campbell's Soup Can, Marilyn and Elvis series. In 1962, the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles exhibited his Campbell's Soup Cans and in New York, the Stable gallery showed the Baseball, Coca-Cola, Do It Yourself and Dance Diagram paintings among others. In 1963 Warhol established a studio at 231 East 47th Street which became known as the "Factory."

In addition to painting and creating box sculptures such as Brillo Box and Heinz Box, Warhol began working in other mediums including record producing (The Velvet Underground), magazine publishing (Interview) and filmmaking. His avant-garde films such as Chelsea Girls, Blow Job and Empire have become classics of the underground genre. In 1968, Valerie Solanis, a periodic factory visitor, and sole member of SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) walked into the Factory and shot Warhol. The attack was near fatal.

In the 1970's, Warhol renewed his focus on painting and worked extensively on a commissioned basis both for corporations and for individuals whose portrait he painted. Works created in this decade include Skulls, Hammer and Sickles, Torsos, Maos and Shadows. Warhol also published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again). Firmly established as a major 20th-century artist and international celebrity, Warhol was given a major retrospective of his work at the Pasadena Art Museum which traveled to museums around the world. In the late seventies Warhol began dictating an oral diary to his colleague Pat Hackett, which became the basis for the best-selling Andy Warhol Diaries. He also frequented Studio 54 along with other members of the international jet-set saying, "I have a social disease. I have to go out every night."

The artist began the 1980's with the publication of POPism: The Warhol '60s. He also began work on Andy Warhol's TV, a series of half hour of video programs patterned after Interview magazine. In 1985, "Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes" appeared on MTV, half hour programs featuring celebrities, artists, musicians, and designers, with Warhol as the host. The paintings he created during this time included Dollar Signs, Guns and Last Suppers. He also produced several paintings in collaboration with other artists including Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francesco Clemente.

Following routine gall bladder surgery, Andy Warhol died of complications during his recovery on February 2, 1987. (Compiled from Internet sources)