Artist film wins Honourable Mention at BIFF

"Brigidy Bram", a film on the artwork and life of Bahamian artist Kendal Hanna, took an Honourable Mention award in the Short Film Category at this year's Bahamas International Film Festival held this past weekend.

Directed by Bahamian artist Toby Lunn & award-winning US filmmaker Laura Gamse, "Brigidy Bram" focuses on the life of Bahamian master artist Kendal Hanna. Born June 25, 1936 in Nassau, Hanna is a painter and a sculptor known as one of the Bahamas' first abstract expressionists. Early in Hanna's life he began experimenting with abstractions through a process which he describes as his "subconscious mind expressing itself on the canvas." During his twenties, Hanna was diagnosed with schizophrenia and prescribed an electric shock therapy course of four treatments per week for an unknown period of time. Upon his release two years later, Hanna used art to recover his motor capabilities and mental acuity. Now 75, Hanna has become one of the Bahamas' most celebrated artists, prolifically releasing work described as "carefully considered and contemplated, provocative and masterful." In BRIGIDY BRAM, Hanna reveals his inner and outer realities through his artworks, memories and one-of-a-kind sense of humor.

The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas celebrated Kendal Hanna with a retrospective exhibition of his art on his 75th birthday. Board chair D. Gail Saunders wrote in the foreword to the catalog: "Kendal's life was a struggle, but in spite of the numerous difficulties and hurdles, he persisted with his art and endured. His art, which is usually described as abstract, is not understood by everyone. But many have come to love his work and have grown to recognize and connect with the passion he expresses in his paintings and sculpture.....A modest giant, Kendal Hanna today is counted among the leading Bahamian artists of our time."



(Left to right) Toby Lunn with Kendall Hanna, Directors Laura Gamse and Toby Lunn with the artist Kendal Hanna in centre; and Still from Brigidy Bram.