Reprinted from the Filmpoem website. This is the Filmpoem Festival’s third year, and it’s great to see Alastair Cook’s vision for it continue to expand and adapt. Films aren’t static, so why should film festivals stay the same? Also, kudos for giving in to poetic temptation and embracing the f-alliteration. —Dave

Filmpoem Festival Fifteen will be an open-ended series of events and screenings. After our successful Antwerp festival in 2014, we are working within the British Isles this year with The Poetry Society and a series of universities and poetry festivals, presenting Filmpoem’s established mix of poetry-film, live film performance, poets, filmmakers, and discussions.

“The combination of film and poetry is an attractive one. For the poet, perhaps a hope that the filmmaker will bring something to the poem: a new audience, a visual attraction, the laying of way markers; for the filmmaker, a fixed parameter to respond to, the power of a text sparking the imagination with visual connections and metaphor.” Alastair Cook, Anon 7 (Edinburgh, 2010).

This wonderful hybrid artform has become a great new force in the worlds of film and poetry provoking a range of terminologies: filmpoem, videopoem, cinepoem and poetry-film each reflecting different origins and schools of thought.

SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN FOR THE GENERAL PROGRAMME

– Films should be no more than 15 minutes in length. If you have a particular film for consideration which is over 15 minutes, please contact us directly.

– The work should contain the full text of a poem or multiple, related poems, whether spoken or using visual text. Talking-head poems will be considered on merit but the poetry-film is a genre that encourages filmic exploration. Poetic film or poetry inspired film without words will also be accepted on merit, depending on relevance.

– Work outside the genre cannot be accepted.

– All submitted work not in the English language must contain English subtitles.

– Deadline for submissions is 1st May 2015

There are two ways to submit:

DIGITAL SUBMISSION

– Upload a screening quality copy of your film to http://vimeo.com. Ensure you set the privacy settings to password only and set the password to filmpoem15

– Email a digital copy of your biography, your full name and contact information to submit@filmpoem.com

PHYSICAL ARTEFACT SUBMISSION

– Send a screening quality copy of your film (Quicktime file – m4v or mov) on a USB stick or DVD. Please do NOT embed the film. DVDs are non-returnable but all USB sticks are returnable if you include a stamped addressed envelope.

– Include a digital copy of your biography, your full name and contact information to

Filmpoem Festival, 21 Cambridge Gardens, Edinburgh, EH6 5DH, UNITED KINGDOM

FURTHER INFORMATION

There is no entry fee.

All submissions will be considered as your screening copy so if the resolution is not sufficient, we will unfortunately not be able to screen your film.

We would encourage the use of original soundtracks wherever possible as no copyright material can be used without the express permission of the poet, musician, filmmaker and/or author.

We will consider your submission as granting us copyright permission to screen the film for the duration of the project and will retain your film for archive unless expressly instructed otherwise.

Many thanks and good luck!

Alastair

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Alastair Cook

Filmpoem is an artists’ moving image project founded by Alastair Cook. We deliver cultural projects and promote the work of poets, filmmakers and composers. Filmpoem has been commissioned by cultural organisations such as Southbank, Poetry International, Poetry Society, Scottish Poetry Library, Alchemy, Antwerpen Boekenstad, Poëziecentrum and Haus für Poesie.

“The combination of film and poetry is an attractive one. For the poet, perhaps a hope that the filmmaker will bring something to the poem: a new audience, a visual attraction, the laying of way markers; for the filmmaker a fixed parameter to respond to, the power of text sparking the imagination with visual connections and metaphor.” – Alastair Cook, Anon 7

Filmpoem’s current core team comprises editor and director Alastair Cook, electro-acoustic composer Luca Nasciuti and cinematographer James William Norton. We are based in the United Kingdom of Words, travel well and are open to commission. The full archive of Alastair’s poetry-film is held by the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh, Scotland.

www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poet/alastair-cook/

• Submissions are open for Filmpoem Festival Fifteen
• Alastair Cook: A Filmpoem Ten
• Filmpoem Festival 2013: Submit!