Nationality: Germany
tour de trance by Monika Rinck
Argentinian-born artist and composer Mario Verandi directed and wrote the music for this “audiovisual composition,” as he calls it, which appears to have benefitted from a very active collaboration with the poet: that’s Monika Rinck’s face in the film and her voice reciting the German text. I was also interested by the fully bilingual nature of the compostion, the German in the soundtrack alternating with English in a different voice (that of Douglas Hendenson). The film premiered at the 2008 ZEBRA International Poetry Film Festival in Berlin.
For more on poet, essayist and actress Monika Rinck, including English translations of some of her poems, see her page at Poetry International Web.
Die unsichtbare Hand (The Invisible Hand) by Daniel Falb
The last of the three collaborations between German poets and Israeli filmmakers sponsored by the 5th ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival. Christian Hawkey is credited as translator for the English subtitles. I was struck by how the inclusion of a song at the end, during the credits, helps unlock the meaning of the videopoem.
For more poems from Daniel Falb in English, as well as a bio, see Poetry International Web.
Teich (Pond) by Monika Rinck
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.
Christmas in Huntsville, Texas by Jan Wagner
The world’s premiere poetry film festival, ZEBRA, in Berlin, has now begun sponsoring the production of new videopoems as well, as the video description on Vimeo makes clear:
The result of the Film-Workshop held during the 5th ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival. Three pairs of artists comprising Israeli filmmakers Emanuella Amichai, Avi Dabach and Joshua Simon and German poets Daniel Falb, Monika Rinck and Jan Wagner were working together to produce scripts and create poetry films in six days.
The poet here, Jan Wagner, is also a “translator of poetry from the English (including Charles Simic, James Tate, Simon Armitage, Jo Shapcott, Louis MacNeice, Kevin Young),” according to this online CV.
Die Farben dieser Welt (Colours of the World) by Rainer Schippers
Rainer Schippers is responsible for the music as well as the poem. George P. Schnyder “Filmed with the GH1 and a Sony HC1 (for the 8mm Stuff).”
Sometimes a Man, by Rainer Maria Rilke
The joint reading by Zach and Larry Grossberg is especially charming here, but the animation by Francesca Talenti is nice, too. The translation is by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy.
Stadt-Fisch (City-Fish) by Jan Kummer
A 16 mm film by Patrizia Monzani, who describes herself on her blog as “a film director and editor. Author of videopoems in collaboration with contemporary poets, she is currently involved in the videoart world also as a curator (cooperations with LOOP festival, Visualcontainer.org and Videoartworld.com).” Of this film, she says on Vimeo:
Three characters cross each other – without really affecting one another, thoughts and voices overlap, strophes are repeated… Actually they are not alone and lonely, they just don’t see what they are surrounded by.
Jan Kummer, the poet here, is an artist and author from Chemnitz, Germany.
Liebhaber in allen Gestalten/Lover in All Forms by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The last two stanzas of Goethe’s poem get the silent movie treatment from some guy named Dave at Apeiron Films. The complete text, and an English translation by Emily Ezust, may be read at The Leid and Arts Songs Text Page. Here’s the portion that appears in the video:
If I were all that,
I would not begrudge you;
with princely gifts,
you should have me.
If I were all that,
I would not begrudge you.But I am just as I am;
and take me for that!
If you want something better,
then let them carve it out of you.
For I am just as I am;
and take me for that.
To Be Said When Going To Sleep (Zum Einschlafen Zu Sagen) by Rainer Maria Rilke
Susanne Stich is the filmmaker, and she used a translation by Cal Kinnear for the English subtitles. I found this a very effective film.
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