Sheik of the Artists: Khalifa Qattan and Circulism (Short Documentary) from Moayad Hassan on Vimeo.
Watch the film and read more about it on:
Sheik of the Artists: Khalifa Qattan and Circulism is the title of a new short documentary production I’ve just finished. The film is the end result of about six months course about new media and public engagement for academics run by Birmingham University (not full six months of course!). The idea is to learn how to present your academic work in a way that the major public can understand and appreciate, which believe me is not as simple as it sounds!
In other words, the film will summarise the first two chapters of my thesis in 7 minutes.
At the end the film will enter a competition and will be published online afterwords. I will keep you updated about the results and where you can watch the whole thing. I didn’t win the competition unfortunately! I was told the judges though the film “was excellent but sadly had to mark it down due to the length. As such it did not qualify for a prize in this particular competition, but it was an excellent submission” and many of the judges though that I “should send it to BBC 4 or a similar forum as a short culture section.” On the other hand, if you ask for my opinion on the winning films, I think they are good.. and should be sent to CBBC or similar forum! 🙄 Regardless of this, I consider the film as my first real and complete documentary film production and I’m proud of it.
My thesis, in case you don’t know, is in the field of History of Art and about an artist from Kuwait called Khalifa Qattan (1934-2003) who created an art the theory known as Circulism in the early 1960s. The thesis covers vast amount of topics regarding the art and cultural history of modern Kuwait and the Middle East and uses modern and contemporary theories from Homi K. Bhabha, Edward Said and others. (See this for more يد الخير و مركب العطاء).
The film was shot with a Sony A1U (provided by the university) along with my own Canon HV20 and Canon 5D Mkii, post produced with Final Cut Pro, Motion and Garageband and Audacity (for the sound). I was supposed to use the university’s Premiere system, but luckily I opted out and used my own computer 😉
My assistant in this production was my wife Athoob who helped me with the shooting we did in the gallery hall of the Barber Institute of Fine Art and also did the narration and the music of the film. The music is called Kuwaiti Nostalgia and is an adaptation of a medley of classical Kuwaiti songs performed on the piano in Athoob’s own style.
At the end I would like to thank the following:
Athoob Abdullah (of course 🙂 )
Tareq Alobaid (photographer)
Khalid Al Haqqan (photographer)
Ton Haring (artist)
Eddie Mize (artist)
Emily Rozier and Nerina Villa (the course staff)
Andrew Davies (from the Barber Institute)
Verity Cridland (daughter of the photographer Veronica Holder)
David C. Foster (for the work of the photographer A.H. Andrus)
Lidia Qattan (artist/writer)
Jutta Vinzent (my thesis supervisor)
I hope you enjoy it.
This is going to be interesting.
A complete documentary production is my dream to make and i agree it is not that simple to work on. I really impatiently want to watch it.
I wish you all the best Moayad, and hope you keep the whole footage for a behind the scenes of making this documentary, this is a must 🙂
Khalid.
Dude .. this is interesting .. let us see the rest of the work .. hey btw .. I didn’t do anything to be thanked .. I was surprised to see my name there 😀
Good luck Moayad 🙂
Al Haqqan..
Your name there is as a photographer, I didn’t thank you 😛
The full film is now ready to watch:
http://www.sheikoftheartists.com
Al Malki..
I will be adding extra features to the site soon 🙂
http://www.sheikoftheartists.com
Love it, to me…you are a winner 🙂
Thank you Bashar 🙂
At the end everybody is a winner 😛
عمل جدا راقي يا بودانة قواك الله و أتمنالك التوفيق
الله يقويك
أجمعين
🙂
Good work.
1-There are some gramatical error to check.
2-Lidia Qattan should also be acknowleged not only as the Artist’s wife but ALSO as Material Provider for the documentary.
3-Khalifa Al-Qattan studied Woodwork Engineering and not Machining, to be corrected.
4-A link to our website “www.qattanart.com” could also be provided for additional reference to those interested in further information about the artist.
Thank you
Hi Jalila,
I was expecting this constructive criticism from you, and I was not disappointed 🙂
Please point me to the grammatical errors that you’ve found and I’ll see what can be done about them. You can contact me using the contact form at the top of the page.
Lidia Qattan is mentioned here as an acknowledgement for her person not as a credit to her position. In the thesis she and her work are cited in a more proper academic manner. I will move here name to the main credit if you find that more proper.
Officially, according to the records of Leicester College of Technology, the course he studied was known as ‘Woodwork Machining’.
I always use qattanart.com as a reference whenever I write about Khalifa Qattan. In the next update of sheikoftheartists.com I will add a links page along with some other new material and a link to your site will be included there more vividly.
Thank you Jalila for your feedback and I hope we can do more together in future projects.