I’ve always been fascinated by sound. When I was at art college a very long time ago I was electrified by the way directors like David Lynch combined sound effects, music and voice to fantastic atmospheric and emotional effect.

So when I was invited to curate a series of films for this year’s REELpoetry festival in Houston, I knew straightaway that even though sound wasn’t the most original of themes, I wanted it to be my focus.

I chose eleven films by ten filmmakers, a tip-of-the-iceberg look at how different poetry filmmakers build soundscapes that play a leading role in creating the emotionally immersive world of the poetry film.

There were hundreds of films I could have chosen, but my way of whittling down the selection was choosing the films that have the most emotional punch for me personally. So, these are also some of my favourite poetry films.

Fran Sanders, Festival Director of REELpoetry, says, “Janet Lees’s beautifully curated selection of poetry films highlights the dynamic power and subtle influences of soundscapes, providing wide ranging examples of how they animate our emotional responses and impact our visual involvement.”

To get under the skin of how they manage this feat of animating our emotional responses, I asked the filmmakers for insight into their decisions regarding sound. Here are those insights, along with the films, in the order they were screened at the festival.

Lament

This animated film by Afroditi Bitzouni is inspired by the poem of the same name by Miltos Sachtouris, with music and sound design by Kyriakos Charalampides and Giuliano Anzani.

I love the way the sound works with the visual here, right down to how the poet’s voice is integrated. There’s a constant sense of threat and precariousness, but at the same time a dynamic feeling of hope – the irrepressible energy of life.

Afroditi says, “I wanted audiences to engage with the poem on multiple sensory levels. The sound is composed of narration, flute recordings, foley, and analog synthesizers, which were later digitally processed. The music aims to complement and emphasize the poet’s raw diction and articulation, while simultaneously aligning with the fast-paced rhythm of the animation.

“A series of musical phrases creates a sense of continuity leading toward a resolution that never arrives. Instead, the sound generates a constant climax that persists until the poem’s end, when everything dissolves into the void.”

Beyond Words

Directed by Helene Moltke-Leth, this deceptively simple film is based on a poem by Else Beyer Knuth-Winterfeldt.

Helene says, “Sound has always been a key focus in my work. At the first art school I attended at 19, I created a sound piece that was showcased in a sound cinema designed for the event. Later, I became one of the first female electronic DJs in Copenhagen, which led to a four-year role at Denmark’s national radio. My documentary filmmaking education at the National Film School of Denmark also emphasised sound design. All of these experiences have shaped my deep love for sound in my creative process.”

This film opens with sounds of mass communication and city life, a masterful combination of sound effects and music that propels you into the film. And then, sudden silence, accompanied by a black screen. Out of this, like dawn rising, emerges a natural landscape, combined with slower, gentler music and natural sounds.

“My idea was to juxtapose busy, everyday life with the calming stillness of nature, reflecting the spirit of the poem,” said Helene. “This contrast came together beautifully in the editing process, particularly with the jarring sound of the truck that transitions the audience into the calmness of nature.”

Throughout the film, one recurring note sounds. For me, this anchors everything and adds a layer of meaning. It feels like the tolling of a bell, a lament for everything we’ve lost and stand to lose, if we do not heed the call to respect and reconnect with nature.

Body Electric

There is stupendous subversion at play in this largely purloined piece by the inimitable Mike Hoolboom. Bookended by other footage, the body of the film is a stolen ad – an iPhone commercial in which an electric socket laments in song how much it’s missing being connected to the phone (because the phone’s charge lasts so long).

The film opens with a forest fire, before switching to the iPhone footage, accompanied by partially repeated broken phrases and electronic sound. The roar and crackle of flames, followed by unpredictable synthetic noise and the hypnotic anaphora – delivered in a robotic voice that somehow holds both bafflement and yearning – are fantastically effective in creating a world of deep unease and existential sorrow you can’t look away from.

Mike says, “The soundtrack is mostly stolen. I cut it to fit the iPhone commercial (more or less) then only added layers of electric bulbs, buzzes, line hums, etc.”

Our Bodies

Another brilliant example of subversion, this time by Matt Mullins, which I find completely mesmerising. I love how it’s a fully found poetic experience – visually, textually and sonically: a recycling of a broadcast by the Christian televangelist Oral Roberts. Its soundscape is incredibly effective – whenever I think about the film, I can recall the sound with great clarity.

Matt says, “The soundtrack is directly tied to the source material and the creative process for that particular piece. The uncarved block of marble I started with was the original footage/soundtrack of that Oral Robert’s televangelist broadcast. When it came to me to make a visual/sonic cut up/erasure out of that source material/sermon, it seemed natural to do a cut up/loop of the music that accompanied the broadcast as the soundtrack/score.

“So what you’re hearing is a loop and distortion of the original organ music soundtrack that was played live at the beginning and the end of his sermon. I took that audio, looped it, added some dirt and other effects and let it gel with the visuals. It all happened rather organically and was part of that piece’s fever-dream process, which was basically two twelve-hour days back to back that resulted in the finished videopoem.”

What the Thunder Said

Pamela Falkenberg and Jack Cochran are a mighty double-act on the poetry film scene. Their immersive soundscapes are momentous and at the same time curiously intimate. I would recognise a Jack-and-Pam soundtrack anywhere, and it always feels as though it’s playing inside my head.

This film is a masterclass in propulsive sound, which dovetails with the unfolding found poem (based on ‘The Wasteland’ by TS Eliot), and Pam and Jack’s drive-by footage, to create a kind of poetry road movie.

Pam says, “The footage was filmed after Jack wrote the cento poem, and we went out on location to find evocative footage that matched the tenor of the lines of the cento. We had some specific locations we wanted to use, including White Sands National Park in southern New Mexico, and Gary, Indiana, once an important part of the US steel industry, but now largely moribund. And we also shot whatever we saw in transit that seemed relevant to the poem. 

“Most of the film was shot using our iPhones, because the stabilization is remarkable. We wanted a soundscape score that would function as diegetic sound. Some of that sound was stuff that we’ve recorded and saved as a library, but a lot of it is sound that other filmmakers and sound guys share on the internet, and some of it comes from Final Cut Pro and other editing software resources. Compared to what it was like to create analog sound mixes using 16mm film flatbed editing equipment, which was state of the art when we were young, digital video and audio comes close to nirvana.”

Here we have whistling winds, howling winds, and what Pam evocatively calls “empty and fearful winds”, along with eerie melodic water sounds, industrial noise, and a symphony of insects.

Pam explains, “Another reason we like to make soundscapes to accompany our poetry films is that they function like a musical score. A lot of our poetry films involve the natural world, and we like the idea of using natural sounds in a musical way to create a soundscape. Our soundscapes are composed from imagined diegetic sounds. We think about what we want to hear, and go looking for it, and sometimes we find it. Other times, we find stuff we weren’t exactly looking for, but is unexpectedly evocative. Sometimes serendipity works for us, so we try to stay open to it.”

Unseen

This breathtakingly powerful film by Helmie Stil, with a soundscape by Lennert Busch, is based on a poem by spoken word artist Sjaan Flikweert.

The poem is inspired by women who have endured domestic violence. The power of the film’s soundscape lies in its quietness, a direct contrast with the ear-splitting loudness of domestic violence. The whispered words and underwater-muffled sounds speak to silencing and suppression.

Helmie says, “The idea of whispering the poem came from interviews I had with women in a safe house. Some of them told me they whispered to their children and in general they had the feeling they should whisper in the house so they didn’t upset their husbands.

“Personally I think you listen more carefully to the poem because of the whispering. You really want to hear what is said, so the voice gets a stronger position. The whispering also gives a feeling of intimacy, it draws you into the inner world of the woman. It symbolises that the women are heard and seen. 

“The underwater sounds emphasise the isolation. When you are underwater, the sounds are subdued and you get in your own world. Your inner world becomes more important, and it’s just yourself. You hold your breath. Women who experience domestic violence always hold their breath, but in their day to day life. I wanted to give the audience the same feeling (of holding your breath) while watching the film.”

Future Perfect

Ian Gibbins is renowned for his propulsive soundtracks and this film is no exception. It harnesses the energy of a music video while simultaneously subverting that energy with dystopian messages from a futuristic Babel. The language in the film is not so much deconstructed as blasted apart, accompanied by a terrifically exciting maximalist soundtrack.

Ian says, “I recorded the voice first: it’s one of the Apple text-to-voice readers that comes with the system. I liked the American tinge to the accent for some reason. The main text is so abbreviated that it’s actually hard to read in real life, so I wanted to see how the text-to-speech would work. Ususally I have to tweak the text a bit when I do this so that the machine reading says the right things, but this time I just went with whatever it produced.

“I wanted the soundtrack to be loud and aggressive, so then I wrote the music and fitted the vocal around it. As is my usual process, the tempo was set to make synchonising the video and audio edits easier – 120 bpm. Once the basic audio was done, I did the text animations to match it. As the video came together, I went back and redid some of the audio – eg the rising tones that come in during the word lists. Getting the final sound mix was tricky: I wanted the vocals to be clear but well embedded in all the noise of the backing.”

Swallow #8

I’m a huge fan of Kristy Bowen’s videopoems, and there are several I could have chosen. I chose this one partly because it sits at the opposite end of the maximalist-minimalist spectrum to Ian’s Future Perfect, but mainly because when I first saw it (courtesy of the Moving Poems newsletter), it stopped me in my tracks.

When I found out that Kristy made it when she had zero experience of poetry film, I was even more impressed. As well as being a great poet, she is also a natural at creating the ‘new poetic experience’ Tom Konyves says a poetry film should be.

Kristy says, “When I was working on the series, I was very new to making video poems, so I was sort of all over the place. I used public domain music for some, my own voiceovers for others. This particular piece felt like the visuals carried most of the weight, so I went with something that allowed them a bit more room and attention. I found it on archive.org which had many recordings of natural sounds that were free to use. It is probably the most silent of the SWALLOW pieces, but it may be my favorite because of that. That spareness was something I kept in mind going forward and as I worked on other series.”

Demi Demons

While there is no ‘official’ poetry in this film by Martin Gerigk, there is language, in both the chapter headings (commandments from the ‘Book of the Eel’) and the distorted words, cries, whispers, murmurs and hums that shimmer through Martin’s masterful soundscape.

At REELpoetry, Chris Pacheco, the director of Festival Fotogenia, talked about the diverse ways in which poetry can be found in film, not always in words. I feel that the combination of iconography and sound in this film creates its own poetic narrative. As he explains below, Martin has synaesthesia, as do I, although we experience it in different ways. In poetry and literature, synaesthesia is a rhetorical device or figure of speech where one sense is described in terms of another. It’s used to great effect in poetry, and poetry film, with crossings-over of visual/text/sound, is a great vehicle for it.

The soundscape in Demi-Demons is mind-blowing, an epic poem in itself, underpinning a momentous film that is currently earning accolades from many festivals as it does the rounds of the experimental film circuit.

Martin says, “I am a synesthete by birth, which means that I experience specific colors, shapes, and movements when I listen to music, speech, or sounds. As a professional music composer, I use this ability to enhance the visual elements of my films by creating soundscapes that synesthetically align with what is shown on screen.

“For Demi-Demons, I sought out particular sounds and noises that synesthetically correspond to every element in the overall visual composition of each scene, combining them into a complex, narratively driven audible landscape. Often, I position these sounds within a virtual space to express the three-dimensional structures I perceive in the scenes. For the vocal elements, I created specific spoken, whispered, shouted, murmured, and sung patterns, which were recorded, edited, and integrated into the soundscapes to achieve the distinct demonic quality required for the film.

“Each sound element is treated like a musical note in a conventional composition – a technique I developed a few years ago. As a result, the soundscape of Demi-Demons, in combination with the film’s visual style, is not merely a soundtrack but rather an orchestral audiovisual composition.”

Demi-Demons is not yet on general release, but the trailer more than gives a flavour.

I c

A clock ticks, a heart beats, and the whole film ‘blinks’. This perfect marriage of sound and vision is a terrific way of introducing the film as a sentient being, a conceit which Helene Moltke-Leth pulls off with great skill, wit and elan in this hugely engaging and powerful film.

Voice is at the heart of I c’s compelling soundscape. The first voice we hear – the ‘I’ voice of the film – is intimate, seductive, pulling you in. From there we switch to another voice, then another, then the voices speaking together. The voice changes keep you hooked, as do the tick and the heartbeat that sound throughout the film.

Helene says, “It is the film itself that is the protagonist in ‘I c’. Usually, the film is the form and the illusion we buy into through which we follow a main protagonist and supporting characters who must undergo a development. In ‘I c’ it is the film itself, which develops from woman to man, from younger to older, from individual to a multi-gendered ‘we’ – from the individual’s questions of identity to the survival of the planet. This ‘we’ is ultimately an omniscient voice coming from within Mother Earth, which articulates the serious climate crises that all of humanity is facing now, no matter who you are. I believe it is important to raise questions in art and this film is one long line of questions.

“Right from the onset and ideation of ‘I c’ I wanted the sound image to consist of a heartbeat and a ticking bell. These sounds symbolically fit well with the narration of the voices. A heart that beats is an absolute necessity for us to be alive. The ticking bell indicates that we need to change our behaviour in this world, otherwise the heart will stop. Both sounds also give the narrative momentum. The rhythmic heartbeat acts as a bass drum, and the ticking bell as a hi-hat. As the work evolved, I also wanted to incorporate the sound of water into the work – both the notion of being below the water surface as well as in the middle of dripping rain. The sound of water gives a dynamic to the soundscape, and water is a common thread in humanity. We cannot live without water, and if we continue life in the way we do now, consistently warming the earth, then large masses of ice will melt, and many people and communities will be flooded by water.”

Build me a Cottage

The soundscape of this beautiful film by Pat Van Boeckel, based on a poem by the legendary Fernando Pessoa, is simple. A straightforward combination of natural sounds, a relatively spare musical score, and voice. Straightforward, yet perfectly balanced. Sometimes there’s just too much going on sound-wise in poetry films. While maximalism can be brilliantly effective when handled well, it can sometimes be intrusive, drowning out the poem and the visuals, preventing you hearing, seeing and feeling them.

Because of that perfectly balanced simplicity, this soundscape lodged itself in my consciousness the first time I saw the film two years ago, and stayed there. Like a river, it brings with it the poem and the beautiful and astonishing visuals, in a work of art that for me is unforgettable. The two-note refrain that sounds throughout the film set up a permanent echo in me; when I think of those two notes they bring back the entire film in vivid clarity. This is one of those rare poetry films that cracks my heart wide open. I think that is a lot to do with the choice of music and how it layers with the natural sounds and the deep, resonant voice, ending with a descent into silence.

Pat says, “From experience, I’ve learned never to choose a poem in advance and then look for images. During the filming of this project, I was invited as a visual artist. I first created a house made of white fabric in an old, abandoned factory where they used to process wool.

It was in Portugal, so naturally, I had brought a collection of Pessoa’s poetry with me. I had already filmed everything except the naked man at the end. I only shot that scene after I was certain I wanted to use this specific poem.”

The way Pat describes his editing process, in terms of the part music plays in it, coincides exactly with mine.

“Once home, I could gain some distance with time. Searching for and finding music gives me a sense of direction and hope that it might become something worthwhile. Music raises the bar because I often find it so beautiful and powerful – it helps me push past my occasional bouts of insecurity.

“When I have the music, I usually let it guide me entirely. The music ‘dictates’ the editing process. I then add the background and consider where the emphasis should lie. In this case, the sheep and how the silence builds toward the end, making the stillness even more profound.”

For those who are not familiar with REELpoetry, it is one of the highlights of the international poetry film festival circuit.

This year the festival ran between 31 March and 12 April, expanding its online presence to show a huge range of films, including juried submissions from 14 countries, many of them premieres, as well as themed programmes curated by invited directors. An addition for 2025 was a series of poetry videos created by young artists aged 18 and under.

Every year the festival also features the vibrant REELcafé, hosted daily by Fran Sanders. This virtual space provides a platform for filmmakers, poets, videographers, viewers, curators, creatives, submission judges, and friends both old and new to connect, converse, and network.