~ festivals and other screening events ~
News about any and all events in which poetry films/videos are prominently featured, whether or not they include an open competition. Please let us know about any we might miss. And don’t forget to check out our page of links to poetry film festivals. All festivals, events and calls for work are mentioned by MovingPoems with our best efforts and in good faith. However, do check all details yourself as we cannot guarantee accuracy, and make your own judgements because we cannot verify the things that we share. Events may fail for a variety of genuine reasons, or may be a scam to elicit fees.
Call for submissions: Liberated Words Poetry Film Festival 2013
A new videopoetry festival is planned for Bristol, UK in October. The deadline for submissions is June 30th.
Festival organisers Sarah Tremlett and Lucy English in conjunction with Colin Brown of Poetry Can welcome videopoems of 3 minutes or less to be screened at Liberated Words poetry film festival, as part of Bristol Poetry Festival, October 2013.
There are two separate categories for this year’s inaugural festival:
Four by Four
Videopoems of three minutes or less are invited as a response to a printed poem by four poets.
The poets and poems are:
Philip Gross: Heaps
Lucy English: from ‘Take Me to the City’
Jo Bell: The Shipwright’s Love Song
Johnny Fluffypunk: Bill Blake’s Birthday Cake for Adrian MitchellWinning entries of each poem will be screened as the highlight of the festival at the Arnolfini, Bristol.
Liberated Words II
We are also inviting videopoetry makers to submit 3 minutes of their most recent work broadly supporting the theme of ‘liberated words’.
The selected poetry films will be shown at a Liberated Words II screening at the Arnolfini Bristol.
See the announcement post for background and other information.
Three Motionpoems screenings upcoming in Minnesota
Via their email newsletter, I just learned about two upcoming events from Motionpoems in Minneapolis/St. Paul: a double screening of a dozen new poetry films on April 24th, and a screening of poetry films by Minnesota authors on April 29th. The full details are currently posted at www.motionpoems.com, though for archival purposes, let me also link directly to the image file.
I’m sure Angella and Todd will eventually post their 2013 films to Vimeo, probably one a month as they have in the past, but if you’re anxious to see them all now and on the big screen, then clearly you need to get to the world premiere screenings on April 24th!
Poetry film festival trailer: The Body Electric
I love the idea of a trailer for a poetry film festival: it makes poetry seem so exciting! (Which, to a poetry nerd like me, it actually is.) More than that, I love this particular trailer for The Body Electric from R.W. Perkins:
http://youtu.be/gDhpANK8sS8
Watch on YouTube
It helps that the dude in the Muybridge animation looks very much like Walt Whitman (“I sing the body electric”).
In an exchange about the trailer at the Visible Verse Festival group page on Facebook, Perkins writes:
The trailer has been working well for TBE, I’ve met many people interested in the idea of a poetry film festival but don’t really know what that means. The trailer has really helped move that conversation along.
Swoon Films 11 Flemish Poets
[press release — feel free to reproduce in whole or in part]
How to make a film based on 11 Dutch-language poems? A fair question. Video artist Swoon has made the poetry short ‘Circle’, in which poems by Leonard Nolens, Stefan Hertmans, Delphine Lecompte, Charles Ducal, Michaël Vandebril, Lies Van Gasse, Xavier Roelens, Jan Lauwereyns, Marleen de Crée, Stijn Vranken and Yannick Dangre tell the story of someone’s life. The poems were recorded by three well-known Flemish actors: Vic De Wachter, Michaël Pas and Karlijn Sileghem.
An extended trailer can be seen on Vimeo.
The Flemish poetry film will premiere on Sunday 10 March at the Scottish international poetry festival StAnza. With this international presentation in mind, all poems were translated by professional poetry translator Willem Groenewegen.
The Belgian premiere will be held on 13 June at the Felix Poetry Festival in Antwerp.
‘Circle’ is a Vonk & Zonen production and was realised with the support of the Flemish Literature Fund and the City of Antwerp. Vonk & Zonen is a new literary organisation focusing on new ways to showcase literature. Recent projects include the ‘Lonely Funeral’ programme, ‘NewsPoem’ in the De Morgen newspaper and the ‘Working Title’ evenings. The poetry film ‘Circle’ is an excellent way to familiarise a wider audience with poetry in an innovative and accessible way.
Swoon (a.k.a. Marc Neys, *1968) has more than 90 videopoems to his name, based on texts by, amongst others, Bernard Dewulf, Johan de Boose, Michaël Vandebril and Jan Lauwereyns. His videopoems were shown at a lot of international festivals, such as those in Berlin (ZEBRA), Vancouver (Visible Verse) and New York (International Literary Filmfestival). This year, Swoon has been asked to co-curate the first Filmpoem Festival (2-4/8/13, Dunbar, Scotland) alongside Alastair Cook, Luca Nasciuti and Dave Bonta.
Editor’s note: We will share the full-length film on Moving Poems as soon as it becomes available. In the meantime, enjoy the trailer (and attend StAnza or the Felix Poetry Festival if you can). See also Swoon’s post mortem of last year’s Felix Poetry Festival here at the forum.
Poetry film festivals: upcoming deadlines and more
First, a reminder that at least FIVE festivals devoted to poetry films are currently open for submission: Trevigliopoesia Festival (deadline: March 1), The Body Electric Poetry Film Festival (deadline: March 21), Filmpoem Festival (deadline: May 1), DOCtorCLIP Roma Poetry Film Festival (deadline: May 15) and Visible Verse Festival (deadline: August 1).
In addition, for those who missed the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival in Berlin last fall, there will be a reprise showing of some of the best films at the Kosmopolis International Literature Fest, March 14-16 in Barcelona. The blog post announcing this includes a good thumbnail history of ZEBRA and of poetry-film generally. Here’s a snippet:
In the early 20th century poets were as much inspired by the cinema as filmmakers by poetry. The first film adaptation of the poem ‘Twas the Night before Christmas’ (1822) by Clement Clark Moore was made in 1905 in the studios of Thomas Alva Edison. Another very early testimony to the influence of poetry on the great directors is the film The Unchanging Sea (1910) by D. W. Griffith after the poem of the same title by Charles Kingsley. Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand, with their futuristic adaptation of Walt Whitman’s city melancholia in their film Manhatta (1921), set standards which still apply today. L’invitation au voyage (F 1927) by Germaine Dulac is a timeless interpretation of Charles Baudelaire’s ‘Les Fleurs du Mal’ or Combat de Boxe (B 1927) by Charles Dekeukeleire after a poem by Paul Werrie. In L’Etoile de Mer (F 1928) by Man Ray lines from Robert Desnos’ 1928 poem »La place de l’etoile« are faded in on boards. And of course Un chien andalou (1929) by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí with its poetic system. These are only some examples of the early poetry adaptations.
The constantly rising number of entries demonstrates the growing worldwide popularity of the genre and the necessity of this festival. Of all the programmes organised by the Literaturwerkstatt Berlin, the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival is the most-booked, receiving invitations from throughout the world. It is regularly invited to take part in festivals from Buenos Aires to Taipei. In 2010–2012 alone it has been a guest in many countries including Algeria, Dubai, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Lithuania, Malta, India, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Colombia, Ireland, Norway and Ukraine.
It’s definitely an exciting time for directors and fans of videopoetry/filmpoetry. Needless to say, there are a myriad other film festivals held annually around the world, and many if not most may be open to submissions of at least some types of poetry films.
Two new essays on videopoetry
I have been doing much thinking about Visual Text in a videopoem. Unfortunately, at the rate that my fingers touch the keyboard, I haven’t had much to show for it. But Litlive just posted my essay, Visual Text/2 Case Studies, in which I comment on two of my favourites from the finalists for their VidLit Contest, both in the Visual Text category: “24” by Susan Cormier and “Profile” by R.W. Perkins.
This past year I was also invited to participate in the Zebra Poetry Film Festival Colloquium in Berlin, but had to cancel the visit due a family emergency. A few days before the event, it was suggested I write something to contribute to the discussion. My good friend and former Vehicule poet, Endre Farkas, read it aloud at the Colloquium. It’s now been posted at http://www.academia.edu/3474487/Address_to_the_Colloquium_Berlin_Zebra_Poetry_Film_Festival_2012. In it, I argue that, among other things,
A good videopoem is not predetermined from a script juxtaposed with illustrative elements – it is produced during the editing stage, when the elements are brought together, positioning and duration of text are determined, images and their duration are selected, and sound is chosen, the work is constructed segment by segment, as if they were raw materials in a cauldron. The role of “chance” in this process should not be underestimated or absent.
Editor’s note: For more on Tom and his work, go to TomKonyves.com.
VISIBLE VERSE FESTIVAL 2013 Call for Entries and Official Guidelines
- VVF seeks videopoems with a 12 minutes maximum duration.
- Works will be judged by their innovation, cohesion and literary merit. The ideal videopoem is a wedding of word and image, the voice seen as well as heard.
- Please do not send documentaries as they are outside the featured genre.
- Either official language of Canada is acceptable, though if the video is in French, an English-dubbed or-subtitled version is required. Videopoems may originate in any part of the world.
- Please submit by sending the URL for your videopoem along with a brief bio, full name, and contact information to Artistic Director Heather Haley at hshaley@emspace.com. There is no official application form nor entry fee.
VISIBLE VERSE FESTIVAL Oct. 2013, Vancouver, BC
DEADLINE: Aug. 1, 2013
See the website for more, including a postmortem on Visible Verse 2012. To view more videopoems by various artists, visit Visible Verse on Facebook.
Celebrate London Poetry Systems’ 5th birthday Feb. 16 with Alastair Cook and Swoon
London Poetry Systems “came into this world when a few friends decided to put on a kind of club night mixing poetry, music and live visuals. We wanted to see poetry in a new context, one that made sense to us, that spoke of our generation.” They’ve emerged as one of the most vital spaces for contemporary filmpoetry and videopoetry screening in the UK. On February 16, they’ll mark their 5th birthday with appearances by, and live mixes from, Scottish filmpoem maker Alastair Cook and Belgian videopoet Mark Neys, A.K.A. Swoon, as well as the composer Luca Nasciuti, whose work features in the soundtracks of a number of Cook’s filmpoems. Other poets and musicians will perform as well. The location is Edel Assanti, near Hyde Park. Get the complete details from their Facebook event page, or, in a somewhat more abbreviated form, from their website.
Call for submissions: 6th annual Trevigliopoesia Festival
The Trevigliopoesia Festival has been held in Treviglio – Bergamo (near Milan, Italy) every year since 2008, and includes a competition called La Parola Imaginata. From their website:
TRP – Trevigliopoesia is VIDEOPOETRY: Video-Art, Video Documentary and Poetry Film.
The word as language but also a symbol that becomes an element as the expression of thoughts, images, visions of the poets and their lives. Combining inspirations and influences from the field of philosophy, music, theatre and literature the result of the artistic creation meet the public showing the perfect union between POEM and VIDEO.Under the patronage of the Office of Culture of the town of Treviglio, the arts association Nuvole in viaggio advertises the sixth edition of the video poetry competition LA PAROLA IMMAGINATA.
March 1 is the deadline for submissions. Download a PDF of the rules from their website. (And don’t forget that Italy’s other international poetry film festival, DOCtorClip in Rome, is also still open for submissions.)
Date set for The Body Electric Poetry Film Festival
As just announced on their Facebook page,
The date is finally set. On Saturday May 4th 2013 at the Lyric Cinema Cafe in Fort Collins CO. The Body Electric Poetry Film Festival will come alive! So now you can tell everyone you know, to tell everyone they know about the what, where and when. Also, don’t forget we are still open for submissions.
Event review of Alastair Cook’s “Absent Voices”
Writing for the Scottish Review of Books, Theresa Muñoz reviews a live screening and performance of Alastair Cook‘s “Absent Voices” series of filmpoems. Since I’ve never personally seen a filmpoem screening done in what might be called a karaoke-like fashion, with the poet present to read the text while live musicians performed the soundtrack, I was especially interested in hearing how well these videos worked in that context.
When folk read poems, images sparked from the narrative float through their minds. Alastair Cook’s own brand of Filmpoems, whereby the poet reads his work against a running 8mm or 16mm short film, provides the audience with a firm set of visuals. It’s an intriguing art form which both expands and contracts the poem’s possibilities, as the audience tries to thematically integrate the text with the established visuals of the film (and soundtrack). The majority of Cook’s Filmpoems are lush, evocative and dark creations filmed in the derelict sugar shacks on the James Watt Dock in Greenock.
Set in the Scottish Poetry Library’s cosy downstairs area, the setting was that of a makeshift cinema. A white screen hung from the high wall. A golden clarsach, later trilled by Rita Bradd, stood in the corner. Musician Luca Nasciuti was on hand to provide a haunting soundtrack. Cook began by describing how the batch of film poems came about. Commissioned by the arts collective Absent Voices, Cook asked seven poets to contribute a work: Gerard Rudolf, Jane McKie, Brian Johnstone, John Glenday, JL Williams and Sheree Mack. The poets were each given archived pictures of the sugar industry and watched a short film about the dilapidated buildings.
