~ News and Views ~
Call for entries: Weimar Poetry Film Prize
The Weimarer Poetryfilmpreis or Weimar Poetry Film Prize is a new venture associated with the same people who run the excellent, bilingual website and magazine Poetryfilmkanal (Poetryfilm Channel). The three-person jury consists of ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival director Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel, poet Nancy Hünger and experimental filmmaker Hubert Sielecki. Here’s the English portion of the call for entries:
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Through the new Film Prize, backup_festival and Literarische Gesellschaft Thüringen e.V. (LGT) are looking for innovative poetry films. Filmmakers from any nation and of any age are welcome to participate with up to three short films of up to 8:00 mins, which should explore the relation between film and written poetry in an innovative, straightforward way. Films that are produced before 2013 will not be considered. From all submitted films selected for the festival competition three Jury members will choose the winner of the main prize (1000 €). Moreover, an audience award of 250 € will be awarded.
The competition »Weimar Poetry Film Prize« is financed by Kulturstiftung des Freistaats Thüringen, Thüringer Staatskanzlei and the City of Weimar.
Entry deadline: March 15th, 2016.
Form for submissions [pdf] by mail or e-mail.
The »Weimar Poetry Film Prize« call for entries is international. For the submission send with the other informations a quotable text of the related poem in German or English.
Presentation of awards: May 21th, 2016.
More information about the program: www.backup-festival.de.
ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival moves to Münster, issues call for entries
ZEBRA, the world’s premiere poetry film festival, has been held in Berlin every other year since 2002, a project of Literaturwerkstatt Berlin (which is in the process of changing its name to Haus für Poesie). Though spin-off events derived from the main festival regularly occur all over the world in cooperation with local arts organizations, in 2016 the festival has a new home altogether—Filmwerkstatt Münster—and a new website at zebrapoetryfilm.org (with an English-language option).
The international ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival has a new home in Münster. From the 27th to the 30th of October 2016, for the very first time the Filmwerkstatt Münster, in cooperation with Literaturwerkstatt Berlin/Haus für Poesie, will host the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival Münster|Berlin.
The idea for a festival for short films combining poetry with moving pictures was created in 2002 by the Literaturwerkstatt Berlin/Haus für Poesie. They organized the festival in Berlin until 2014 and have established it as the biggest platform for the genre poetry film. At the initiative of Kunststiftung NRW, the relocation is anticipated to carry the genre beyond the borders of the capital and anchor it in North Rhine-Westphalia.
In Münster, ZEBRA is going to take place every other year – alternating with the Filmfestival Münster and the Lyrikertreffen. With special offers for schools, the kids programme ZEBRINO, film presentations about diverse topics, discussions and poetry readings, the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival Münster|Berlin invites a wide audience to discover the poetry film for themselves.
The ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival Münster|Berlin will be held from the 27th to the 30th of October 2016 at cinema Schlosstheater in Münster. On the 31st of October 2016, the winning entries and a selection of the best films will be presented in Berlin.
Of most interest to the filmmakers and videopoets reading this, I suppose, is the other article currently on their front page:
Submissions for the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival Münster|Berlin begin on the 1st of February 2016
From the 1st of February 2016 artists from all over the world can submit their contributions. A total of five prizes, among them two audience awards, are endowed together with 12.000 €. Eligible for submission are poetry films with a maximum length of 15 minutes that were finished after 1st of January 2013. Deadline for entries is the 1st of July 2016.
The international competition is the heart of the programme, which will be comprised of approximately 200 films in total. A programme commission consisting of film, poetry and media experts is going to nominate the films for the festival and the competition. An international jury will choose the winning films, which will also be shown by the Literaturwerkstatt Berlin/Haus für Poesie in Berlin.
The festival is also inviting entries of films based on this year’s festival poem, »Orakel van een gevonden schoen« by Mustafa Stitou. The directors of the three best films will be invited to Münster to meet the poet and have the opportunity to present and discuss their films. You will find the poem with a sound recording and various translations at lyrikline.org.
Visit zebrapoetryfilm.org for contact information. I’m pleased to see that Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel will continue as ZEBRA’s artistic director, suggesting that there will be a high degree of continuity despite the switch from sponsorship by an organization focused on poetry to one focused on film. He’ll be joined by managing directors Risna Olthuis and Carsten Happe, who have also run the Münster Film Festival since 2014.
Call for poetry films: Liberated Words at Bath Fringe Festival 2016
CALL FOR POETRY FILMS
Utopia / Dystopia
Dance and Freedom
Liberated Words at Bath Fringe Festival 2016
Entry submission deadline 31st March, 2016.
The Utopians wonder how any man should be so much taken with the glaring doubtful lustre of a jewel or a stone, that can look up to a star or to the sun himself; … who hide (a precious stone) out of their fear of losing it … If it should be stole the owner … would find no difference between his having or losing it, for both ways it was equally useless to him … or how any should value himself because his cloth is made of a finer thread; for how fine soever that thread may be, it was once no better than the fleece of a sheep, and that sheep, was a sheep still, for all its wearing it. (Thomas More, Utopia, 62–64)
To commemorate the 500th anniversary of Thomas More’s Utopia, Liberated Words will be hosting two poetry film screenings alongside exciting performance poetry on 26th May and 2nd June at Walcot Chapel, Bath. These events will be part of The Utopia/Dystopia-themed Bath Fringe Festival, 2016. We are requesting poetry film submissions of up to three minutes in length for two categories: Dance and Freedom and Utopia/Dystopia. The dance poetry films will include a unique collaboration between Bath Dance College, Radstock and creative writing and media students from Somervale School, Midsomer Norton. The Utopia/Dystopia screening will include breakthrough films by gifted teenagers from Butterflies Haven in Keynsham.
For further details and entry form please follow this link: http://liberatedwords.com/call-poetry-films-2016/
Great introduction to film poetry… on the radio
I just listened to an excellent, 45-minute program on BBC Radio 3 called “Crossing the Border – Poetry and Film.” Though understandably UK-centric, its survey of the history of poetry films and film poetry gave due credit to early Soviet filmmakers and other international influences, and talked in some detail about the earlier conception of a film poem as simply a non-linear, lyric film. The highlight of the program for me was hearing Tony Harrison and Peter Symes explain the collaborative working process for their ground-breaking poetry films of the 1980s, articulating ideals strongly reminiscent of those of videopoetry pioneer Tom Konyves from the other side of the Atlantic. I liked the attention paid to the link between poetry film and propaganda or advertising, which is a connection I don’t see spelled out very often. And I appreciated Alastair Cook’s positive assessment of what the democratization of access to filmmaking tools in the digital age has meant to the genre and those who practice it.
The program is now available on the website (and at iPlayer), though if I’m not mistaken BBC will block access to any IPs not originating in the UK, so international listeners may have to connect through a proxy. It’s well worth the hassle. Here’s the show description:
Right from the birth of cinema, film-makers have experimented with poetry in film. Matthew Sweet explores this overlooked history.
The Russian pioneer film-maker Dziga Vertov developed his celebrated montage technique out of Mayakovsky’s poetry and the GPO Film Unit’s ‘Night Mail’ with W H Auden’s closing poem owes a good deal to these Russian experimentalists. Starting at the unlikely site of the studio where scenes from ‘Night Mail’ were shot and recorded eighty years ago, Matthew establishes this iconic film as an important blueprint for poets and film-makers since.
In recent times, the poets Tony Harrison and Simon Armitage have both made documentary films where their poems replaced conventional commentaries. Matthew hosts a reunion between Tony Harrison and his collaborator, the film director Peter Symes, as they relive the powerful moment of filming of the exhumation of a body in a Neapolitan necropolis. This moment poses core questions about film poems: what does the viewer hear and see, how do word and image relate to each other? With Simon Armitage, Matthew learns how his poetry on film gives a voice to the marginalized. Now, a burgeoning movement of experimental film-makers are creating a new space for the production, curation and distribution of film poems in festivals and in digital media, so as the mainstream media fragment, film poetry is returning to its avant garde roots as was exemplified by early film poem makers such as Germaine Dulac and Maya Deren.
Producer: Emma-Louise Williams
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3.
For those who haven’t seen Night Mail, here’s a YouTube upload.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkLoDg7e_ns
The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: “Western Civilization”
Western Civilization
poem by Peter Jay Shippy
directed and animated by Alicia Reece (MotionGnome) for Motionpoems
lettering and lead actor: Emory Allen
make-up: Ashley Burke
music: Joey Verskotzi
additional animation: Valerie Lockhart
2014
Western Civilization is a well-produced, breathtaking piece. Based on a poem by Peter Jay Shippy, it was one of many short films to debut at the 2014 Motionpoems premiere. The design, poetry and voiceover work flawlessly together. This is as close to perfection as one can get.
I’ll begin with the design. Alicia Reece works with a limited color palette, then switches to black and white, then back to incorporating color against a scratchboard-like background. Add an old scratchy film effect, and we are taken back in time. If I’m not mistaken, the animators used actual video footage and applied the cartoon (special effect) using the Adobe program After Effects. This is a nice, smooth way to simulate animation. It appears that Reece does a lot of commercial work, which is apparent judging from the execution.
The poem is wonderful. It’s hip-hop coupled with American twang. Sort of like Paris, Texas meets Rihanna. The voiceover fits perfectly. I’m back in the 60s or 70s, tripping on mushrooms or peyote and looking for god. Or in this case Keith Moon (former drummer of The WHO.) The reference to popular music is a bonus. This makes the piece a total postmodern experience—or pop-culture experience if you will.
The combination of styles and the use of type all blend successfully, which clearly communicates how we can know, and have known, the American west. I’m ready to get in the car and drive all the way to New Mexico, or in this case Utah. I think it would be fun meeting up with a shaman who is familiar with rock music.
Western Civilization is truly a beautiful piece with a wicked sense of humor.
Oslo poesifilm 2016 program online
Oslo poesifilm, Norway’s “Festival for Digital and Visual Poetry” now has a good, informative website* (as opposed to the minimally informative site they’ve used in the past). It’s even in English! The 2016 festival—their fourth—is set for February 4-7 and is free of charge. Scroll down the front page for the complete program. There are a number of talks and forums in addition to the screenings, with participants from across Europe and even two from the U.S.; it all looks fascinating.
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*My only criticism of the website, for what it’s worth, is that new content doesn’t show up in their RSS feed, though I’m not sure how many people even use feed readers these days.
Poetry Film Magazine debuts in PDF and print
The inaugural issue of Poetry Film Magazine, titled “Faszination Poetryfilm?” is available for download. (Disclaimer: it includes an essay of mine.) There’s also a print version from Literarische Gesellschaft Thüringen, though I’m told supplies are limited. The content has all appeared on the Poetryfilmkanal website over the course of 2015 (which makes it easy for us Anglophones to copy and paste the German-language portions into Google Translate), but the magazine is beautifully designed and easy to read, so I’m finding myself revisiting the essays and reviews with real pleasure. Here’s the flip-book version from Issuu.
In their email to authors, Poetry Film Magazine editors Aline Helmcke and Guido Naschert included two further announcements:
We have more good news: We herewith announce the first Weimar Poetry Film Prize! Our application for funding was successful and the prize will be awarded at the backup_festival (May 18-22) this year. The call for entries will open during the next days and will run until March 15th.
Regarding our blog: the next call for essays „Sound and Voice-Over in Poetry film“ will open around the end of March/beginning of April. We are very eager to get to know your thoughts and receive your new submissions.
I’ll share more details as they become available.
Call for submissions: Carbon Culture’s $1000 poetry film prize
April 1 is the deadline to submit to this uniquely generous poetry film prize from Carbon Culture with judge Zata Banks from the UK-based PoetryFilm project. Here are the details.
Poetry Film Prize
We want to integrate film and literary culture. Carbon Culture will award a $1,000.00 prize for the best poetry film. Zata Kitowski, director of PoetryFilm, will pick the grand prize winner and finalists. The winning entry will receive $1,000.00. The top five entries will receive high-profile placements across our social media networks, a one page note alongside honorable mentions in our newsstand print and device editions. Deadline for submissions is April 1, 2016.
By submitting, you grant CCR the right to publish selected poetry films in our online issue as well as recognition in our print issue. All rights revert to the film creator(s) and/or submitter.
Rules for Submission
- Create a video adaptation of your original, unpublished poem.
- Post the video to a Youtube or Vimeo account and make it live.
- Submit the piece as an .Mp4 alongside your bio or team member’s bios to us.
- One submission per poet, please. If you previously created a poetry film for our initial guidelines listed in early 2015 for John Gosslee’s poem before we opened the contest to any original poem, you may submit this and one other poetry film for consideration.
Prize Announcements will be made in July 2016. Payment will be made via Paypal.
Film Types
All visual and textual interpretations of any contemporary poem written by you or someone on your team are welcome. Animation (digital or cartoon,) live action, kinetic poems, stop motion, anything you can imagine. We are looking for literal and non-literal interpretations of the poem. How long should it be? That is up to you. Poetry is meant to be heard and we encourage audio.
Eligibility
The prize is open to poets, students, individuals and teams.
Click Here to Submit Your Film.
The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: “Working Order”
Working Order
poem by Dora Malech
video by Gentleman Scholar, for Motionpoems
2015
Gentleman Scholar is a group of solution-driven artists situated at the intersection of story, style and technology. Wielding extensive experience in strategy, live-action production, animation, digital and print, we help the world’s leading agencies and brands tell their stories.
—bio on Vimeo
Gentleman Scholar created fabulous effects to illustrate the poem “Working Order” by Dora Malech. They have used a combination of animation programs to achieve a fluidity that enhances as well as captures the essence of the poetry. I personally prefer this painterly approach (there are several brush stroke filters in Photoshop that imitate painting) to the usual bells and whistles that go along with 3-D modeling, Maya and whatever else, that intends to dazzle the viewer.
The pace is fast and combined with a motion blur, Working Order gives the illusion that the paint is moving. It would be great to see it in 3-D. That would be a nice touch.
I love great art that moves. Gentleman Scholar are highly successful in their application of digital painting. A good many video-poetry artists struggle to get the same impact using illustration, photography and/or enhanced video. This group shines through and brings new life to the genre.
The combination of Malech’s poem and Gentleman Scholar’s visuals has resulted in a stunning work of art. By using this method they have not only bumped poetry video up a notch, but have succeeded in making it the quintessential platform of the 21st century.
For Gentelman Scholar’s own assessment of the video, as well as the full credits, see their website.
The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: “Ursula”
Ursula
poem by Robert Peake
film by Robert Peake and Valerie Kampmeier
2013
Ursula reminds me of a time when the world was adjusting to the aftermath of World War II. This videopoem has the feeling of the Beat era. I love the grainy black-and-white imagery, the car and street video played in reverse.
I love the bear metaphor. Women aren’t usually referred to as bears, at least to my knowledge. I suppose bear is a term for a woman whose ethics are questionable. However, I feel the images of the bear and woman at the end could work better if they were interwoven from the beginning rather than left at the end. It’s almost as if the artist is making sure we understand the symbolism. I think he should give his audience more credit. I’m sure we would get the meaning without having to be told. It’s nice footage and should be utilized throughout the video. This would give the visual a stronger presence. Sometimes this particular medium gets choppy. I would rather see the artist perceive the work more like a painting rather than a puzzle.
Black and white, a car video in reverse, Ursula is a real “dame.” She is the quintessential babe who travels through a Kerouac novel—And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks comes to mind. (That’s the book he co-wrote with Burroughs.) She is a tough-cussing, cigarette smoking, hard-drinking, die-young broad. Ursula is the meat and potatoes of a generation that rejected the post-WW II suburban Americana to live the subterranean lifestyle. Ursula is nostalgia at its best.
The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: Martha McCollough
When I fall in love I fall hard. Such is the case with Martha McCollough. Recently Dave Bonta posted Break & Remake, one of Martha’s outstanding video poems. Not wanting to review something that was so close to having been published, I went to Vimeo and checked out her other work.
The other night I went to the opera and saw Lulu by Alban Berg with sets by William Kentridge. I love opera, but the main reason why I went was to see Kentridge’s sets. His use of typography, animation, and black and white imagery (drawings and video) was outstanding and set the tone for the time in which it was written. It was DADA (my favorite art movement) in its entirety. I felt like I was there in the 30s right before the fascists dubbed all experimental and political art Degenerate. I won’t go into critiquing Lulu. It was an amazing moment.
The real star here is Martha McCollough. Her use of type and collage allows us to enter into a world of pop culture, oppression, and high art. Much like Lulu, her flawless use of movement captures that wonderful feeling of nostalgia. To me, Martha is timeless.
I will not single out one piece to analyze and critique. I think the entire collection of videos should be watched. In viewing the progression of Martha’s work, I have found an artist who understands the marriage of video, illustration, fine art and poetry.
The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: “Millionaire”
Millionaire
Poem by Mab Jones
Animation by Lauren Orme and Jordan Brookes
Dedicated to (about) the poet Johnny Giles
2015
A love poem in every sense of the word, Millionaire is uncomplicated and embraces the value of being in love. This video poem is wonderful and exquisitely charming. Unpretentious and lovely, it gets the point across without being sappy or corny.
I love the simple frame-by-frame line animation. The motion aspect is wonderful, but when I close my eyes and just listen to the audio, the poem still works. Every aspect of this video poem can stand alone, but all together, it is a very special treat.
There is nothing complicated about this piece and that’s why it works. No kitchen sink, just plain and uncomplicated. Millionaire follows the theory and quote by Mies van der Rohe: less is more. So many times, we as artists fall in love with our work and want to incorporate every detail. This is not always necessary in order to get one’s point across.
Millionaire is a true love poem. It is stunning in its plainness and doesn’t waver. There is not much else to say, just a beautiful piece.
