Hisham Bizri

Hisham Bizri is a filmmaker from Lebanon. He has studied in the US withfilmmakers Raoul Ruiz and Miklós Jancsó and lectured on filmmaking inthe US, Lebanon, Ireland, Korea, France, and Japan. He received his Ph.D. in cinema studies, from New York University, his B.S./M.S. in filmmaking from Boston University and an M.F.A. in art and design from the University of Illinois, Chicago. [ [http://www2.cla.umn.edu/clatoday/Winter06/bizri.html An interview from the University of Minnesota] ] As of 2004, Bizri was an associate professor of film at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis and will be on the jury at the 2008 International Symposium on Electronic Art in Singapore. [ [http://www.isea2008.org/ ISEA2008 ] ]

Career

Much of his work may be viewed as meditations on the themes of exile and melancholy.These visual meditations are shaped by Bizri's personal experience ofinterceding between the Middle East of his Arab-Muslim upbringing and
Anglo/European art and culture. In an interview, Bizri notes, "I wasn't sure which religion I belonged to.I would go to the mosque and would pray to Jesus. I didn't really know I was a Muslim until Black Saturday, when Christians in East Beirut started massacring Muslims." [ [http://www2.cla.umn.edu/clatoday/Winter06/bizri.html An interview from the University of Minnesota] ]

The ensuing Lebanese Civil War and the deaths of family and friends around him drove him into the escapist world of cinema, where he particularly enjoyed the works of auteurs such as Ingmar Bergman. He was studying physics at the American University of Beirut, when a famous family friend Rafik Hariri offered to send him to be educated in the United States, where he took up cinema studies. [ [http://www2.cla.umn.edu/clatoday/Winter06/bizri.html An interview from the University of Minnesota] ] He said, "I used to think I should have continued in physics because it was more worthwhile, and I could make a living at it. Then I started to think, 'Art is another tool to know the world. It's just as valid.'" [ [http://www2.cla.umn.edu/clatoday/Winter06/bizri.html An interview from the University of Minnesota] ]

Emerging from this personal context, his work reflects political and social concerns with contemporary Arab politics and culture and aesthetic concerns with painterly values and the poetics of modern life. Bizri not only works in the traditional cinema, but also in art installations that incorporate film. "Las Meninas", an installation created in collaboration with artists/colleagues Andrew Johnson and Christina Vasilakis while at the University of Illinois, Chicago, was displayed at the International Symposium on Electronic Art 1997, hosted by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. "Las Meninas" starts with 17th century masterpiece of the same name by Diego Velazquez in order to explores historical context as well as footage of fascism, while incorporating another masterwork, Pablo Picasso's "Guernica" to add another dimension to the study of fascism and self-reference, as Picasso has referred to "Las Meninas" as influencing his painting. "I want to use the computer technology to look at the past and establish connections between present and past," Bizri said to the "Chicago Tribune", in a September 22, 1997 article. [http://www.evl.uic.edu/chris/meninas/ "Chicago Tribune" article is under the subheading "tribune article"]

His work has been shown in the Arab world and internationally, including at the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Cairo Opera House (Egypt), Biennale Des Cinema Arabes (Paris), the Milan Film Festival (Italy), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris), the Harvard Film Archives (Cambridge), the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and Cinémathèque Française (Paris), among others.

Bizri has served as a jury on a number of international filmfestival including the Chicago International Film Festival. He hasfounded the film studios at the Lebanese American University(Lebanon, 1995), co-founded the film department at the KoreanNational University (Korea, 1999), and built the infrastructure forthe production of digital film at the Center for Advanced VisualStudies at MIT (2000–2003). In 2005, Bizri co-founded the Arab Institute of Film (AIF) [http://aif-film.org/new/english/index.php] with Omar Amiralay.

On his website, Bizri cites some of his favorite film: "Arabic Series" (Stan Brakhage, 1981), "Au Hasard, Balthazar" (Robert Bresson, 1966), "Gertrud" (Carl Theodore Dreyer, 1964),"Genroku Chushingura" (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1942), "The Earrings of Madame de..." (Max Ophüls, 1953) and "Chimes at Midnight" (Orson Welles, 1965). [ [http://www.hishambizri.com/ Official Website] ]

Selected Filmography and Art

* "Cairo Psalm" (feature film, 2008)
* "Structures" (16mm Film, 2007)
* "Asmahan" (35mm, 21 min, 2005)
* "Vertices" (polyvision DV, 32 min, 2005)
* "Chabrol à Biarrtiz" (portrait DV, 22”. 2002)
* "La Rencontre" (fiction DV, 28”, 2002)
* "City of Brass" (fiction, Beta SP, 24”, 2002)
* "Mitologies" (stereoscopic cinema,1998) [http://www.evl.uic.edu/mitologies/index.html]
* "Few Lines, Bars" (stereoscopic cinema, 1998)
* "Las Meninas" (stereoscopic cinema, 1998) [http://www.evl.uic.edu/chris/meninas/]
* "The Book of R" (stereoscopic cinema, 1998)
* "Playing with Picasso" (interactive sculpture, 1997)
* "Message from a Dead Man" (fiction 16mm, 1994)
* "The Leaves of a Cypress" (fiction Beta, 20”, 1991)
* "Vertov’s Valentine" (portrait Beta, 12”, 1991)
* "The Ridiculous Man" (fiction 16mm, 12”, 1991)
* "The Third of May" (fiction 16mm, 9”, 1991)
* "The Sun" (Fiction Super-8, 5”, 1991)
* "Phantasmagoric Conception" (fiction Super-8, 6”, 1988)
* "The Shadow of Exile" (Fiction Super-8, 4”, 1991)

Awards

*John Simon Guggenheim Fellow (New York)
*Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, (University of Minnesota, TC)
*Media Arts Award, Jerome Foundation (Minnesota / New York)
*Resident at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center (Italy)
*International Media Support (Denmark) and the Ford Foundation (NY) funded his proposal for the creation of the first Arab Institute of Film (Jordan)
*LEF Foundation Grant (San Francisco); Institute for the Higher Cinema (Egypt)
*Artist Grant from University of California at Davis
*Commission from Festival Int’l de Programmes Audiovisuels (France) Resident
*Artist Grant from MIT Council for the Arts (Cambridge)
*Commission from the Louvre Museum
*Excellence in Film from the Louvre Museum
*Filmmaking Fellowship from Harvard, Boston, and New York Universities

References

External links

* [http://www.hishambizri.com/ Official Website]
* [http://www2.cla.umn.edu/clatoday/Winter06/bizri.html An interview from the University of Minnesota]
* [http://www.evl.uic.edu/chris/meninas/ Bizri's "Las Meninas" work available for viewing on this site]
* [http://www.evl.uic.edu/mitologies/index.html "Mitologies" work available for viewing on this site]
* [http://www.walkerart.org/archive/6/BE539156FC44954B6161.htm website on "Mitilogies]
* [http://aif-film.org/new/english/index.php Arab Institute of Film]
* [https://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/03/23/midmorning2 Minnesota Public Radio Interview, March 23, 2006]
* [http://www.isea2008.org/ International Symposium on Electronic Art 2008]