~ August 2023 ~
Witte Vlag/White Flag by Pat van Boeckel and Pieter van de Pol with Peter Verhelst
Belgian poet Peter Verhelst is the author of the four lines of poetry recited in the film, but I had to include the filmmakers in the title as well because their symbolic, Tarkovsky-influenced style is at least as central to the poetry of the film. Pat van Boeckel is a regular at Moving Poems, and many of his best films spring from other artists’ projects or exhibitions, as this one did. His fellow Dutch artist Pieter van de Pol, who’s the actor in the film, I think, is involved in something called the White Flag Art Project based in Essen, Germany and coordinated by artist Katharina Lökenhoff: “An international art project exploring the white flag meeting global contemporary challenges.” Peter Broderick composed the music.
As an older white male poet myself, watching this led me to ponder the relationship between the Romantic ideal of a heroic lone creator with the larger capitalist culture, its production of ruin in the course of a consumerist atomization of society, and how the apocalypses we conjure in our imaginations have their own daimonic power. None of these lessons are necessarily implicit in the film; I bring them up merely as a way of saying how thought-provoking I find this contemplative style of poetry filmmaking.
Sonnet 66 by Luke Kennard
Sonnet 66 is an animated film by Jamie MacDonald from a poem by Luke Kennard, commissioned by UK publishing and performance project Penned in the Margins.
The film was made to coincide with the launch of Kennard’s poetry collection Notes on the Sonnets, which went on to win the 2021 Forward Prize. A description of the collection:
Notes on the Sonnets… recasts Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets as a series of anarchic prose poems set in the same joyless house party.
The writing in Sonnet 66 is witty and elusive, and the film animation is cleverly simple. The whole is amusing and compelling in its short duration.
Two other films by Jamie MacDonald have previously featured here at Moving Poems.
Afterimages by Mackenzie Duan
love everything about this animation by Evan Bode, though the first time I watched I wasn’t completely sold on the high school-aged poet Mackenzie Duan’s voiceover. On second viewing, I changed my mind, discovering, as Bode evidently did, that a youthful lack of assertiveness can code as sincerity and a kind of wisdom when one absorbs it in the overall context of the sound design, the intense colors, and most importantly the gorgeous lines of poetry. The film was created for Season 4 of the literary magazine Counterclock‘s Patchwork: Film x Poetry project,
a nine-week interdisciplinary arts fellowship open to filmmakers and poets. Filmmakers and poets are paired together to create original film-poems, or short films inspired by poetry. In the first half of the fellowship, each poet works to produce an original poem informed by both their and their partner’s creative interests; in the second half of the fellowship, each filmmaker works with their partner to adapt their partner’s poem into a short film.
Visit the film’s page at Counterclock to read the poem and bios. Here’s a snippet from the former:
Behind us, the hills
slope in brushstrokes over a lake,
soft and washed out, like the placefires go after burning.
Our bodies become stations of lightwhen the sun dips.
Crossing to Ireland by Jean Maskell
I always tend to feel that poetry animations are best at their most abstract and minimalistic—depending on the poem, of course. This animation by Rachel McMahon AKA RaeRae won the audience award at the Liverpool Celtic Animation Festival. It’s a collaboration with Jean Maskell, “a multi-disciplinary artist and writer inspired by contemporary and historic social issues and the natural world,” who provided the voiceover and text: a poem “about the conflicting emotions of feeling a part of two countries.” Perhaps it is that sense of a provisional existence that makes the kind of tentative approach to the animation—lines drawn and undrawn on white space with a paper grain—such a good fit.
Gethsemane by Toby Martinez de las Rivas
Gethsemane is one in an ongoing series of films from Jane Glennie, made in collaboration with fellow UK poet Toby Martinez de las Rivas, and Bulgarian sound artist Neda Milenova Mirova. This poem is from the collection Floodmeadow, published earlier in 2023 by Faber.
All films in the series take an experimental approach, including layered and truncated voices, gritty sound and music, and still images animated in darkly expressive ways. The three collaborators seem artistically well-matched, the writing, sound and film-making coherently meeting. Another highlight from the series is Psalm-for-the Sea, Little Sea-Psalm.
Jane Glennie currently has a solo exhibition happening over August and September in the Art at the ARB program of University of Cambridge. Gethsemane and the other films in the series form part of the exhibition, along with her award-winning Because Goddess is Never Enough.
We have previously featured several other of her films here. In addition, Jane regularly posts about film festivals and more at Moving Poems Magazine.
Call for entries: REELpoetry/HoustonTX 2024
The Public Poetry organization in Houston, Texas has announced the opening of submissions to REELpoetry/HoustonTX 2024 on FilmFreeway:
REELpoetry/HoustonTX 2024 is an international, curated, hybrid poetry film festival taking place online APRIL 1-4 and in person APRIL 5-7, 2024. We explore the intersection of poetry and film or video with artists working solo or collaboratively, on a cell phone or in a studio, with new or remixed or previously created work. Everyone worldwide is invited to submit their best work, created in the past or the present, up to a maximum of 6 minutes
In addition to open submissions, the festival includes a series of 40 minute themed curated programs, premieres, commissioned collaborations, deaf slam, live readings, craft workshops, poet+filmmaker talks, deaf+hearing panels and networking cafés. Screenings stream on-demand three more weeks.
REEL’s on the radar of curators and presenters and festival directors from Australia to Canada, from Ireland to Mexico, and you can connect with them at parties and premieres in person or at REELcafes in real-time online.
We’ll be screening juried open submissions in two unthemed categories — one being poetry films or videos under 4 minutes, and the second 4 to 6 minutes in length.
NEW! NEW! This year there’s a themed submission category for work inspired by the concept of “Juxtaposing Reality.” Think about elements, events, ideas, people, places that belong together–or don’t—now, in the past, and/or in the future.
We’re excited to see your work, and it’ll be great to see you online or in person at REEL 2024! REELpoetry/HoustonTX is a project of Public Poetry (publicpoetry.net).
Awards & Prizes
Prizes in cash will be awarded in four categories: poetry film/ videos under 4 minutes; poetry film/ video 4 to 6 minutes, responses to our theme and Audience Choice.
Official Selection REELpoetry laurels look great added to any poetry video or film!
Rules & Terms
1. All Entries must be 6 minutes or less, including credits. No exceptions.
2. You can submit in any language, but an English translation must be included.
3. We accept both new and pre-existing work or a repurposed combination of both.
4. For screenings to be accessible to the deaf, you must show the poem either on-screen or captioned. Poems that are spoken must include written text.
5. Filmmakers may use footage in the public domain from sites like Creative Commons (creativecommons.org)
