Filmmaker: Avi Dabach

Zman / Time by Mei-Tal Nadler

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A new poetry film by Avi Dabach with text by Mei-Tal Nadler and music by Harold Robin. Einat Weizman read the poem and Adriana X. Jacobs provided the English translation used in the subtitles.

Nadler won the 2014 Teva Prize for Poetry, whence this bio:

May-Tal Nadler is a poet and doctoral student of literature and Israeli culture at Tel Aviv University. Her first book of poetry, Experiments in Electricity, was published this year.
Nadler has previously won the Ministry of Culture’s award for poets for 2008 and was among the prize winners of the 2008 Poetry Along the Way competition, sponsored by the city of Tel Aviv. Her manuscript won the Leib Goldberg award for literary work.

Nidon (Condemned) / נידון by Haim Lensky

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A new poetry film from Israeli director Avi Dabach. According to the Wikipedia,

Haim Lensky (1905–1942 or 1943), also Hayyim Lensky, was a Russian poet who wrote in Hebrew. He wrote the bulk of his verse while imprisoned in several Soviet labor camps from 1934 onward.

Spring 82 by T. Carmi

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A film by Avi Dabach with acrobatics and choreography by Reenat Caidar and sound design by Gai Sherf.

The Altruist by T. Carmi

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A moving tribute to the power of poetry from Israeli filmmaker Avi Dabach and PTSD-sufferer Micha Shalvi, who describes how the poem by T. Carmi — which he reads at the end — saved his life.

Young David by Yehuda Amichai (with discussion by Edward Hirsch)

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http://vimeo.com/24221256

Avi Dabach’s marvelous film interpretation of Amichai’s “Young David” (translated by Abraham Birman) is wrapped within a video introduction and post-film discussion by Bob Holman and Edward Hirsh at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City. Hirsch describes his own, elliptical approach to politics in poetry, and says that Amichai was his major influence and model in this regard.

Mountain High by Tal Nitzan

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Avi Dabach directs. The original music and soundtrack are by Anat Gutman, and the reading is from the poet herself. A recent online publication of two poems by Tal Nitzan in English translation, at Writestuff, includes this bio:

Tal Nitzan has published four collections of poetry: Domestica, An Ordinary Evening, Café Soleil Bleu, [and] The First to Forget and won many awards. Nitzan is the editor of the anthology With an Iron Pen: Hebrew Protest Poetry 1984 – 2004.

Teich (Pond) by Monika Rinck

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Another of the three collaborations between German poets and Israeli filmmakers sponsored by the 5th ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival. The text seems like an especially good one for a poetry film, since it imagines multiple interpretations or applications for a central image, accentuating the synergy of the text-film combination.

For more English translations of Monika Rinck’s work, see her section on the Poetry International Web site, as well as the volume 16 Poems translated by Alistair Noon.