Kim Mihri by Berna Gencalp

We are proud to announce that the documentary “Kim Mihri” by Berna Gencalp, who was a Moon and Stars Project grant recipient for the year 2019, received the best documentary award at the Antalya Film Festival.

“Who is Mihri” is the untold story of the painter Mihri. The director decided to follow Mihri’s journey from late Ottoman era Istanbul onward to Rome, Paris and New York. Mihri, whose image, artistic work and life story were unjustly obscured, lost and deformed is revived through interviews and fully animated sequences. The MASP Grant supported Berna Gencalp to develop the www.kimmihri.com “source website” as a transmedia project, which featured a compilation of in-dept interviews with expert art historians and archival documents on Painter Mihri’s life as well as the artist’s works. Mihri (1886-1954) is an artist from Istanbul who spent many years of her life in Europe and the USA through her art and her life. Positioned as an interactive platform for viewers from all over the world to contribute to the discussions and communicate, Kim Mihri/Who is Mihri aims to activate the efforts of Mihri as an artist and an art educator.

Born in Izmir in 1974, Berna Gencalp holds a BA degree in Film and Television from Istanbul Bilgi University. She has attended international workshops in Greece and Katapult in Hungary with her script “The Wig Story” She was invited to the Berlin Film Festival Talent Campus and the Antalya Film Festival. She has named and held various positions within “Canlandiranlar”, the independent animation film festival that aims to promote animation art in Turkey, since its start in 2008. In 2014, she presented a paper on “Construction of the Self in Kerime Nadir and Agatha Christie: I am not your cliché” at the international symposium entitles “Women’s Lives: Auto/biography, Life Narratives, Myths and Historiography” organized by Yeditepe University and the Women’s Library and Information Center. Gencalp is mainly interested in gender studies, contemporary art and music, and has worked as a freelance editor and a writer for various publications.