~ 2016 ~

Applications open for two-week Films as Poems workshop in London

On 21 February, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - workshops and courses

I was excited to hear about this upcoming course for aspiring poetry-film makers from filmmaker and poet Zillah Bowes.

Films As Poems is a 2 week workshop in film creativity structured around making a film poem, taking place in London 4-15 April 2016.

Participants develop, shoot and edit a 2-5 minute film poem on the course during 2 weeks. There are workshops in camera and sound as well as feedback during the various stages of the film process.

Previous participants have screened their films after the course, including selection at the Zebra Poetry Film Festival.

Participants are mainly factual filmmakers looking to develop poetic expression, but the course is open to all.

Full details and examples at www.filmsaspoems.com.

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Filmmakers needed for a digital Book of Hours

On 21 February, 2016 by Lucy English with 1 Comments - calls for work, literary magazines and websites

Call for collaborators!!!! I am creating a contemporary digital re-imagining of a Book of Hours. I will be making forty eight poetry films to represent four times of day for each month of the year. Loki English, from Berlin, will be building the site. I have made five films with Marc Neys and one of these, A Postcard From My Future Self, was screened at Visible Verse in Vancouver. Helen Dewbery, Carolyn Patricia Richardson, Eduardo Yagüe and Maciek Piatek have also made films. I would be interested in hearing from other film makers. Let me know if you would like to be part of this project. Here is a link to the website.

I am exploring different approaches to making poetry films. With Marc Neys we started with the sound. With Helen Dewbery and Maciek we started with the images. I also have a selection of poetry and I am keen to write more. Please contact me for further information: Lucy English, slamlucy@hotmail.com.

Without War by Gerry King

On 12 February, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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This author-made filmpoem by Gerry King in collaboration with videographer Gregory Rose is reminiscent of the most powerful political campaign ads, but with a more timeless message. The use of multiple readers, each situated in a particular place, lends additional veracity to the message—and I like the idea of a performance poet standing aside to let others take the mike. Here’s the YouTube description:

More than twenty years ago Gerry King wrote Without War and performed it to audiences across England. Now in a collaboration with his friend and Dartington College of Arts collaborator Gregory Rose the text is given a new life while the theme continues to steal lives all over the world….
Text © Gerry King, Images and soundtrack © King and Rose 2016.

Not My Home by José Orduña

On 11 February, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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An author-made videopoem by Mexican-American writer José Orduña from the Winter/Spring 2016 issue of Triquarterly (where it’s described as a video essay). This is the first issue with videos chosen and introduced by the new video editor, nonfiction writer and illustrator Kristen Radtke. Here’s what she wrote about “Not My Home”:

In “Not My Home,” José Orduña explores negation. He invites us inside intimate images of a single home—shoes by the door, a stuffed animal on an unmade bed, pencil lines up the wall marking children’s growth. These images are repeated even as the narrator tells us over and over again that the home is not his, that the memories do not belong to him and neither does this story. Yet we as viewers get the feeling he knows this house better than anyone has ever known a home before, and that perhaps that knowledge is exactly why he needs to go about negating it—it is, in a sense, a haunting. Just the slight unease of a subtle breeze, or a motion in the corner of your field of vision, is the sense of a ghost. Orduña’s very short video clips create gorgeous moving snapshots of a disembodied life: Grass twitches. Light shimmers on a teapot. His slow, melancholic images make us ache for the space as much as his narrator seems to.

Click through to watch the other two video essays Radtke chose. I’m pleased to see that the magazine still leads off with its video selections, though I hope that the absence of videos identified as “cinepoetry” is only temporary. (Perhaps they just aren’t getting enough submissions.)

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Envoi by Hugo Claus

On 10 February, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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Claus’s poem is adapted to film by his fellow Belgian Marc Neys AKA Swoon. The poet’s reading is courtesy of Lyrikline and the English translation is by John Irons. Marc used footage by Jan Earala, but everything else—concept, music, editing—are his own.

Marc told me recently that he’s moving away from writing process notes, preferring to let the films speak for themselves, as witnessed by his new, stripped-down, portfolio-style website. Last year, he made a pair of films for another Claus poem, “Halloween,” the second one also using footage from Jan Earala. Here’s hoping that more Hugo Claus filmpoems might be in the offing.

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The Meeting Ran Long by Eric Blanchard

On 5 February, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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A new, text-on-screen-style videopoem by Australian artist Marie Craven using a text by American poet Eric Blanchard and sections of three hand-processed, experimental films. Craven recently shared some process notes as a part of a blog post about her recent videopoetry remixes.

After putting together a first videopoem last year based on the poetry of Eric Blanchard, I went exploring more of his writing to be found on the web. I was especially drawn to a prose poem called ‘The Meeting Ran Long‘, published in Literary Orphans. The piece created for me a sense of daydreaming in an empty room in a transitional moment of solitude, evoking a short stream from the unconscious mind. I started experimenting with how I might present this as text on screen and settled on simply deconstructing the written piece into component phrases that might reveal or give rise to new resonances in the unconscious spaces of the writing itself. Once I had transferred all the text to the screen, I cut the visual phrases to an experimental music piece by C.P. McDill, a sound artist whose work I have followed and admired since about 2008. The track, ‘Iced Coffee‘, was sourced from The Internet Archive, where it is freely available for remixing on a Creative Commons licence. For the images I went to Vimeo and did some searches on key words in their large pool of videos also available for remixing via Creative Commons. I discovered the work of the Mono No Aware group and selected three hand-processed films by Rachael Guma, Ashley Swinnerton and David Beard. Aside from being wonderful experimental film pieces in themselves, each flowed in a kinetic way that reminded me of the pace of thoughts, memories and images as they flow through a human brain. I put these together with a universal film leader from an old vaudeville show to come up with a first draft of the video. I then sent it to the poet to ask his permission to proceed with a final version. Eric kindly agreed. After a little reworking, this is the video that emerged.

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Pearls by Chaucer Cameron

On 3 February, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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An author-made videopoem by Chaucer Cameron that was sparked by an image in a Swoon videopoem. Pearls was recently featured at Atticus Review, accompanied by some process notes:

Symbolically, Pearls provides a vehicle for wisdom as well as providing a mirror in which to see ourselves, giving us insight into how we appear to others.

In a more literal sense, the “Mother” in the poem is on a mission to ‘find herself’ through some pearls that she thinks are hidden in the rocks. Her son, who is watching from down below, is trying desperately to communicate, to gain her attention, her love. In fact, he is trying to tell her that she already has pearls, if only she could see them.

The first line of the poem was inspired by a poetry-film on Moving Poems site, so it seemed appropriate to explore my text further through film. I sent the poem to Voiceover Artist and Broadcaster David Wartnaby. A few weeks later, I found exactly the right footage, music and sound and the poetry-film fell into place.

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A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

On 2 February, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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Poe’s 1849 poem in a 2014 adaptation by Catalonian poet Josep Porcar with cinematography by Tomás Baltazar, a voiceover by Tom O’Bedlam and a Catalan translation by Txema Martínez Inglés in subtitles. The actor is Luis Carvalho.

Message4u by Cecelia Chapman and Jeff Crouch

On 1 February, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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https://vimeo.com/153544328

Artists Cecelia Chapman and Jeff Crouch have collaborated on a number of videos over the years, some of which — like this one — can be seen as videopoems. The soundtrack is by Halo Svevo, and Christa Hunter appears in the video along with footage from 1956 film On Guard! by IBM. There’s also a small folded book and CD.

Message4u is a video and folding book based on email conversations between myself and Jeff Crouch about knowledge, democracy, technology and the computer and oracle as repositories of knowledge and prediction.

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Call for entries: Weimar Poetry Film Prize

On 1 February, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - calls for work, contests, festivals and other screening events

The Weimarer Poetryfilmpreis or Weimar Poetry Film Prize is a new venture associated with the same people who run the excellent, bilingual website and magazine Poetryfilmkanal (Poetryfilm Channel). The three-person jury consists of ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival director Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel, poet Nancy Hünger and experimental filmmaker Hubert Sielecki. Here’s the English portion of the call for entries:

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Through the new Film Prize, backup_festival and Literarische Gesellschaft Thüringen e.V. (LGT) are looking for innovative poetry films. Filmmakers from any nation and of any age are welcome to participate with up to three short films of up to 8:00 mins, which should explore the relation between film and written poetry in an innovative, straightforward way. Films that are produced before 2013 will not be considered. From all submitted films selected for the festival competition three Jury members will choose the winner of the main prize (1000 €). Moreover, an audience award of 250 € will be awarded.

The competition »Weimar Poetry Film Prize« is financed by Kulturstiftung des Freistaats Thüringen, Thüringer Staatskanzlei and the City of Weimar.

Entry deadline: March 15th, 2016.

Form for submissions [pdf] by mail or e-mail.

The »Weimar Poetry Film Prize« call for entries is international. For the submission send with the other informations a quotable text of the related poem in German or English.

Presentation of awards: May 21th, 2016.

More information about the program: www.backup-festival.de.

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ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival moves to Münster, issues call for entries

On 31 January, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - calls for work, festivals and other screening events

ZEBRA, the world’s premiere poetry film festival, has been held in Berlin every other year since 2002, a project of Literaturwerkstatt Berlin (which is in the process of changing its name to Haus für Poesie). Though spin-off events derived from the main festival regularly occur all over the world in cooperation with local arts organizations, in 2016 the festival has a new home altogether—Filmwerkstatt Münster—and a new website at zebrapoetryfilm.org (with an English-language option).

The international ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival has a new home in Münster. From the 27th to the 30th of October 2016, for the very first time the Filmwerkstatt Münster, in cooperation with Literaturwerkstatt Berlin/Haus für Poesie, will host the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival Münster|Berlin.

The idea for a festival for short films combining poetry with moving pictures was created in 2002 by the Literaturwerkstatt Berlin/Haus für Poesie. They organized the festival in Berlin until 2014 and have established it as the biggest platform for the genre poetry film. At the initiative of Kunststiftung NRW, the relocation is anticipated to carry the genre beyond the borders of the capital and anchor it in North Rhine-Westphalia.

In Münster, ZEBRA is going to take place every other year – alternating with the Filmfestival Münster and the Lyrikertreffen. With special offers for schools, the kids programme ZEBRINO, film presentations about diverse topics, discussions and poetry readings, the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival Münster|Berlin invites a wide audience to discover the poetry film for themselves.

The ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival Münster|Berlin will be held from the 27th to the 30th of October 2016 at cinema Schlosstheater in Münster. On the 31st of October 2016, the winning entries and a selection of the best films will be presented in Berlin.

Of most interest to the filmmakers and videopoets reading this, I suppose, is the other article currently on their front page:

Submissions for the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival Münster|Berlin begin on the 1st of February 2016

From the 1st of February 2016 artists from all over the world can submit their contributions. A total of five prizes, among them two audience awards, are endowed together with 12.000 €. Eligible for submission are poetry films with a maximum length of 15 minutes that were finished after 1st of January 2013. Deadline for entries is the 1st of July 2016.

The international competition is the heart of the programme, which will be comprised of approximately 200 films in total. A programme commission consisting of film, poetry and media experts is going to nominate the films for the festival and the competition. An international jury will choose the winning films, which will also be shown by the Literaturwerkstatt Berlin/Haus für Poesie in Berlin.

The festival is also inviting entries of films based on this year’s festival poem, »Orakel van een gevonden schoen« by Mustafa Stitou. The directors of the three best films will be invited to Münster to meet the poet and have the opportunity to present and discuss their films. You will find the poem with a sound recording and various translations at lyrikline.org.

Visit zebrapoetryfilm.org for contact information. I’m pleased to see that Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel will continue as ZEBRA’s artistic director, suggesting that there will be a high degree of continuity despite the switch from sponsorship by an organization focused on poetry to one focused on film. He’ll be joined by managing directors Risna Olthuis and Carsten Happe, who have also run the Münster Film Festival since 2014.

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Noman’s Land Common by Robert Peake

On 29 January, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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A new videopoem by Robert Peake (poem, concept) and Valerie Kampmeier (original music). With all the thousands of poetry videos I’ve watched over the years, I’ve never seen someone use footage shot through a kaleidoscope before—leave it to an endlessly inventive tech geek and poet like Peake to come up with it. I find the effect mesmerizing and an apt complement to the text. As usual, he’s posted the poem at his blog, along with some process notes:

With the tenth anniversary of the birth and death of our son James fast approaching, I find myself writing about the ongoing effects, including sudden and overpowering moments of grief. The text came first. I then shot time-lapse of clouds through an inexpensive toy kaleidoscope using a Raspberry Pi camera. I also shot real-time nature footage through the same kaleidoscope by holding it up to my smartphone camera. Valerie composed and performed the music. The title refers to a nearby patch of common land in North Hertfordshire that we frequent. One year, after extensive tilling, a field adjacent to the common erupted in red poppies, not unlike the no-man’s land of the First World War.