Last weekend was the biannual ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival Münster | Berlin, the world’s largest and most prestigious poetry-film event. Six prizes were awarded in all.

The International Jury, with filmmaker and journalist Jasmine Kainy, Dutch poet Erik Lindner and publisher of poetry film magazine Guido Naschert, awarded four prizes:

The “ZEBRA Prize for the Best Poetry Film”, donated by the Haus für Poesie, goes to Boy Saint by the Irish director Tom Speers (based on the poem of the same name by Peter LaBerge). “Boy Saint” sensitively tells the story of the confusing feelings of two adolescent boys who become aware of their budding sexuality.

The “Goethe Film Award”, donated by the Goethe-Institut, goes to Stad in die mis | City in the Mist. The elaborate animation from South Africa, based on the poem by the Afrikaans writer D.J. Opperman, tells the story of a man who experiences the city as an enemy animal.

The “Award for the Best Film for Tolerance”, donated by the Federal Foreign Office, goes to Anna Eijsbouts’ silhouette animation Hate for Sale based on the poem by Neil Gaiman. The film by the Dutch director and animator tells of a world in which people consume hatred and are consumed by it. Ayny – My Second Eye received a special mention, which tells of the strength of people who have lost their homes, their homeland and their fundamental rights. The film, which has already won a Student Oscar, is based on a tragic event that director and author Ahmad Saleh himself experienced ten years ago in a refugee camp.

The “Ritter Sport Filmpreis” in the German-language competition goes to Standard Time, a timeless, self-referential meditation on the power of communication that changes and sometimes falsifies – by Hanna Slak based on a poem by Daniela Seel.

Merle Radtke, the new director of the Kunsthalle Münster, the filmmaker Rainer Komers and the author Sabrina Janesch formed the jury for the NRW competition.

In the NRW competition, the film (No) We, I, Myself and Them? by Christin Bolewski, which impressively illustrates the poem “massacre” by Liao Yiwu with passing drawings, sketches and image sequences, impressed the jury. An old Chinese hand-written scroll of a cityscape “opens up” to documentary video footage taken on Tian’anmen Square in Beijing.

And finally, an enthusiastic young audience awarded the Zebrino Prize, donated by Filmwerkstatt Münster, to the American real film Scrappy by American filmmaker Dawn Westlake. She adapted a poem by her father Donald G. Westlake – which tells of a courageous little girl, a dog and stolen chickens.

For four days, the Schloßtheater offered the filmmakers, poets and viewers of the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival Münster | Berlin space for discoveries and encounters. The winning films and other entries from the competitions will be presented at the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival at the Kulturbrauerei cinema in Berlin from 6 to 8 December 2018. Next autumn, the Filmfestival Münster will again be presented at the Schloßtheater.

The festival is organized by Filmwerkstatt Münster in cooperation with Haus für Poesie, Berlin. It is supported by the Kunststiftung NRW, the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia and the City of Münster.

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