Posts By Dave Bonta
جَمر الزّيتون / The Stone of The Olive by Saurav Dutt
A poem by British Bengali author Saurav Dutt animated by Egyptian filmmaker Nissmah Roshdy, whose film The Dice Player took top honors at the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival in 2014. The Stone of The Olive was screened at ZEBRA 2106; here’s the description from a YouTube upload of the trailer:
A young man’s soul struggles to stay attached to his homeland after the destruction of war and occupation takes over his country. As he faces violence, the only thing that ties his soul to the land is the olive tree. The film visualizes the poem “The Stone of The Olive” by british author Saurav Dutt and adopts a fantasy-like portrayal of the struggle of Palestinian refugees.
Mahmoud Taji recites the poem, and the music is by Aaron Mist. The translation in subtitles is credited to World Translation Center.
Meditations of an Old Woman (excerpt) by Theodore Roethke
https://vimeo.com/37148226
This is Lost Acres, part of director/composer Jennifer Stock’s Poetry Illumination Project. Though it contains just two lines from Roethke’s long poem “Meditations of an Old Woman”, it does manage to convey something of the poem’s aesthetic and mood. The description reads:
An illumination of lines from Theodore Roethke, centered around abstracted nightscapes. Original music comprised of processed piano sounds.
What is the Word by Samuel Beckett
This is Qué Palabra, directed by Eduardo Yagüe: a Spanish-language interpretation of Samuel Beckett’s poem “What is the Word” with the original text in subtitles. Jenaro Talens is the translator, and Sergio Cabello the actor. It’s been screened at the 6th International Video Poetry Festival 2018 (Athens) and Festival Silêncio 2017 (Lisbon). I think it’s fair to say that it is very, very Beckettesque. Also, the closing shot is brilliant.
Call for videopoetry: Langue Festival della Poesia di San Lorenzo
A student-run poetry festival in the San Lorenzo quarter of Rome will include a videopoetry section, and they’re open for submissions. Langue – Festival della Poesia di San Lorenzo (Facebook page) will be held on May 26. From their call for participants:
Per la categoria Video Poetry, la durata dell’opera dovrà essere massimo di 25 minuti. Qualora il file fosse troppo pesante per una mail, inviaci il tuo lavoro tramite WeTransfer e noi penseremo al resto. Ricordati anche in quel caso di indicare la categoria nell’oggetto della mail.
(For the Video Poetry category, the duration of the work should be a maximum of 25 minutes. If the file is too heavy for an email, send us your work via WeTransfer and we’ll do the rest. Remember also in that case to indicate the category in the subject of the email.)
(Translation via Google.) There’s also a bit in English:
World Wide Poets
If you are not Italian, it doesn’t mean you cannot contribute to our festival. Indeed, you can send us your proposal (an unpublished collection of poems, for example) per mail (festival.langue@gmail.com), indicating if you already have a translation of your work in Italian or at least in English. You can contribute with everything you prefer: readings, video poetry, performances, and so on. The deadline is May 2
I asked the organizer, Giorgio Papitto, if they had preferred languages or file formats. He said they were happy to discuss these matters with submitters “and arrange what suits at the best for the author and for the festival. The language is not a problem, if there are subtitles (either in English or in Italian).”
Poetry film festival news round-up
Weimar Poetry Film Award extends deadline
If you thought you missed your chance to submit to the Weimarer Poetryfilmpreis (original deadline: January 31), you’re in luck: the new deadline is March 31. Here are the guidelines.
Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival open for 2018 submissions on February 28
I’ll share the full announcement next weekend, but for all you eager beavers, gird your loins!
Motionpoems Season 8 Premiere (take 2)
If you missed your chance to attend Motionpoems’ Season 8 premiere screening in New York on February 8 (which was sold out), you’re in luck: they’re holding a second Season 8 premiere in Minneapolis on April 13! You might’ve thought that “second premiere” is a logical impossibility, but that’s the magic of poetry film for you.
Motionpoems Season 8: Dear Mr. President is screening in Minneapolis! Two screenings will be held at 5:30 and 7:30 with a panel discussion in-between. Admission is free, but a $10-20 donation is encouraged to support Motionpoems Season 9. Beer and wine will be available.
Led by Executive Producer Claire McGirr, this year Motionpoems has decided to tackle issues that affect everyone.
Pairing filmmakers & poets to make creative content, Season 8 features 12 short films that tackle racism, LGBTQIA+ rights, immigration, women’s rights, gun control, educational & social welfare, judicial system reform, climate change, and news/media/social platforms.
Our poets include Tiana Clark, Natalie Diaz, Eve L. Ewing, Peter LaBerge, Robin Coste Lewis, Susannah Nevison, Danez Smith, Maggie Smith, Lee Ann Roripaugh, and Nomi Stone.
Their poems were adapted to film by directors Daniel Daly, Kate Dolan, Mohammed Hammad, Anais LaRocca, Savanah Leaf, Monty Marsh, Jane Morledge, Ty Richardson, Ryan Simon, Tom Speers, Jovan Todorovic and Tash Tung.
Light Up Poole winners and shortlist
The overall winner of this new UK competition was Kneading Language by Celia Parra Diaz. Here are the shortlist, the judge’s statement, and the winning film.
On the Other Side by Natalie H. Rogers
A multi-voiced poetry film by writer and filmmaker Tova Beck-Friedman. From its webpage:
ON THE OTHER SIDE is a portrait of an aging woman as her “youngness” slips away. Based on a poem by Natalie H. Rogers, the film interweaves voice, animation and music to lay bare the essence of a woman’s vanishing youth; her aging process is irrevocable revealing a deeply fragile and touching reality.
The three narrators are Avis Boone, Duvall O’Steen, and Natalie H. Rogers. Their repetition of lines wouldn’t work for every poetry film, but it’s a good fit for this poem’s disbelieving, incredulous tone.
was by Mischa Pearlman
Videographer Kerstin Ebert calls this
A montage about New York City, a faded relationship, a guy on a bus and a note on his hand.
This is my visualization of Mischa Pearlman’s poem “was”, alongside the beautiful song “Maelstrom” by shipwrecks-music.com.
Camera & Editing – Kerstin Ebert
Him – Casey Skodnek
Her – Freeda Lou
Poem – “was”, by Mischa Pearlman
Read by – Kurt Lash
Music – “Maelstrom”, by ShipwrecksFilmed on Sony a7sii during the cold month of December 2017 in New York City.
Mischa Pearlman is a British music journalist and poet based in New York City.
I Know a Man by Robert Creeley
This is Drive, a remix by Daniel Cantagallo of Robert Creeley’s poem I Know a Man. The poet’s reading is a bit stilted, pausing for the enjambed line breaks (not reproduced by the text on screen here) that were so central to his style, but somehow it makes a perfect fit with the music (“Red Tide” by loscil) and the full-tilt footage. Quoting Cantagallo’s description:
There’s always been something deeply existential about driving…the open road, the possibilty of escape from identity…and of course the threat of death by accident.
In Robert Creeley’s most famous poem, “I Know A Man”, the speaker contemplates what we can do against the darkness and chaos of modern life.
In this cheeky and moody remix, I use a recording of Robert Creeley reading his poem juxtaposed with a 1951 government public information series on automobile safety and the dangers of driving at night.
Driving on the Highway can be watched in all its glory on the Internet Archive. The National Archives description:
TRAINING FILM: On techniques on driving on highway. Sixty percent of all accidents happen at night because of poor visability and fatigue. Reduce speed, use headlights and avoid using interior lights at night.
Saturday by Lucy English
A video remix by Othniel Smith for Lucy English’s Book of Hours project, with her reading as the only soundtrack. Smith notes in the description that he sourced the imagery from a 1961 film produced by General Motors called A Touch of Magic. Intrigued, I found a Wikipedia page for it. It included the immortal lines:
This dream house you and I will share
Was planned for us by Frigidaire.
A half-century from now, will our contemporary techno-utopian fantasies seem as corn-ball and melancholy as this does now? Nothing ages as poorly as modernism — or is better suited for recycling into poems, especially one as wistful and gently ironic as this.
El Otro / The Other by Rosario Castellanos
My latest Moving Poems production remixes a translation I made of a poem by the great, 20th-century Mexican writer Rosario Castellanos with footage of a performance art piece. I found the latter on Videezy: two clips licensed CC0, i.e. public domain, but I still think it’s important to acknowledge the original director, Derek Alan Rowe—especially since I made so few changes to his clips—as well as the artist/performer, Stephanie Leathers. In place of the original soundtrack, which was more atmospheric, I hit on the idea of using a tango (for hopefully obvious reasons), and found a Creative Commons-licensed one on SoundCloud that I liked by an Iranian musician named Roozbeh Fallah. As usual, my tools were basic: Magix Movie Edit Pro and Audacity.
