In a friendly atmosphere, the opening of the exhibition “Stills from unmade films” of the Turkish director and photographer, Ismail Necmi, took place on Saturday, December 4th, at the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art (MMCA), as a parallel event of the 51st Thessaloniki Film Festival.
The artist showed around the exhibition the TIFF director, Mr. Eipides, the President of the MMCA, Ms. Xanthippe Heupel and the Turkish Consul, Huseyin Ozdemir, all present at the event.
In her message of welcome, Ms. Xanthippe Heupel thanked the Festival and especially Mr. Eipides for their close and of high level, collaboration. “We have presented many interesting exhibitions held as parallel events of the Festival and this year, we have the honour to host the exquisite work of a very important artist from Turkey”, stressed Ms. Heupel, while at the same time, she expressed the desire that the collaboration between the Festival and the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art would carry on in the future, despite the difficult financial circumstances.
Following Ms. Heupel’s message, Mr. Eipides, after praising the work of the MMCA by describing it as one of the most beautiful and active museums in Greece, pointed out that: “We discovered Ismail Necmi as a filmmaker by pure chance, in a film festival in Turkey. His film was brilliant, it was selected by more than 20 film festivals worldwide and we included it without any hesitation in last year’s Documentary Festival official selection. Later on, we became acquainted with his work as a photographer, which is utterly breathtaking.
Right after Mr. Eipides’ speech, Ismail Necmi warmly thanked the Thessaloniki Film Festival Director, as well as his collaborators, for making this exhibition a reality and invited the audience to stroll around it.
The Turkish Consul, Mr. Huseyin Ozdemir, greeted the exhibition and expressed satisfaction over the collaboration of the two institutions in the field of culture. “Thessaloniki is famous for its Film and Documentary Festivals held every year. I am really pleased with the opportunity given each year to Turkish artists to be a part of these Festivals, as well with this year’s participation of one of the best Turkish directors and photographers, such as Ismail Necmi”, underlined Mr. ?zdemir.
In the exhibition “Stills from unmade films”, through the use of black and white film and in collaboration with the writer Samuel Williams, Ismail Necmi is tempting to explore in parallel time dimensions the connection between photography and literature, while flirting with Surrealism and the extreme by blurring the boundaries between the real and the imaginary, between art and actual life. The exhibition, supervised by Thanos Stavropoulos and Anna Milosi, lasts until Sunday, December 12th 2010.
