~ September 2018 ~
Poetry films on the refugee crisis to be screened at North Cornwall Book Festival
For those able to get to St Endelion on October 4th, this sounds like a great event.
Uprooted
Event 2
Thursday 4th October, 7.30pm, St Endellion Hall
Admission £6 (Free to accompanying carers)Uprooted tersely describes the situation of the subjects of this evening of poetry films. Poetry filmmaker and writer, Sarah Tremlett and performance poet and novelist, Lucy English are Liberated Words. They’ll screen powerful and varied short poetry films from their Home From Home project, exploring the effects of war in the Middle East and the refugee crisis, as well as interpretations of home for those arriving as immigrants in a strange country. Between films, Lucy will perform poems from The Book of Hours.
If you’re not sure just what a poetry film might look like, you can watch some of the Liberated Words catalogue of films here.
You can find out more about Sarah’s work here, and about Lucy’s work here.
Liberated Words CIC www.liberatedwords.com was founded in 2012 by poetry filmmaker and arts writer Sarah Tremlett (www.sarahtremlett.com) and performance poet and novelist Lucy English (Reader in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University). Poetry films are short films combining poetry (spoken and/or written with the moving image and music, and Lucy and Sarah’s focus is to curate and screen films from their community workshops alongside top international poetry filmmakers. Workshops include working with: school children (English, Media and Dance), dementia patients, and teenagers with autism (where they were recognised by Bath Council for raising awareness about autism, particularly for the parents and carers involved).
Their current project-in-progress Home from Home which will take place in 2019, centres on urban and rural groups facing homelessness, whether refugees or those from a variety of disadvantaged backgrounds. It offers the opportunity to use poetry film workshops and a one-year screening programme as a means of expression and learning, while creating a revealing approach to consciousness-raising for the general public. Films screened on this special festival evening have been selected by Sarah from the Liberated Words and Poem Film archives, or by courtesy of the artists. There will be an opportunity for discussion after the screening.
Click through to book a ticket.
Wild Whispers International Poetry Film Project to launch at Swindon Poetry Festival
The Swindon Poetry Festival Programme 2018 is live, and includes this event:
U.K. LAUNCH OF WILD WHISPERS INTERNATIONAL POETRY FILM PROJECT WITH CHAUCER CAMERON
5th October; 17:00 – 18:00; TENT PALACE OF THE DELICIOUS AIR.
Wild Whispers is an international poetry film project that started with one poem and led to 12 versions, 9 languages and 12 poetry films. The project travelled from the U.K. to India, Australia, Taiwan, France, South Africa, Belgium, Sweden and the U.S.A., creating poetry films in English, Malaylam, Chinese, French, Affrikaans, Belgium, American Sign Language, Navajo, Spanish, and Welsh.
Here’s the trailer:
A printed pamphlet will be available with process notes from each of the contributors as well as the ever-mutating text of the poem. It’s a fascinating project, to which—full disclaimer—I was honored to be asked to contribute. I’ve never been to the Swindon Poetry Festival, but I believe this is its tenth year, and they’ve certainly got a varied and interesting programme. Back in 2014, poet and poetry filmmaker Robert Peake called it
among the friendliest and least pretentious; rich, diverse, and encompassing; pushing past conventional views of poetry in the twenty-first century; intimately global; startlingly fresh.
Tickets are through Eventbrite.
2018 Juteback Poetry Film Festival releases shortlist
Juteback Poetry Film Festival has released a list of their 2018 selections: 24 films in all. Countries of origin aren’t listed, but based on the names I recognize, I’d say it looks like a very international selection.
JPFF is, as they say on their About page, “Colorado’s only poetry film festival and one of only two screening in the U.S. today” (the other being Doublebunny in Massachusetts).
Join us on Friday October 19th at Wolverine Farm Publishing’s Letterpress and Publick House, 316 Willow St, @ 7:30 in Fort Collins CO. for Juteback Poetry Film Festival 2018. […] Festival Director R.W. Perkins. Festival Programers R.W. Perkins & Matt Mullins.
Good Bones by Maggie Smith
Motionpoems’ latest release is based on U.S. poet Maggie Smith‘s viral poem. As director Anaïs La Rocca explains,
In the summer of 2016, Maggie Smith sat in a Starbucks in Bexley, Ohio, and wrote a poem. “Life is short, though I keep this from my children,” it began. Smith had no idea that she was setting down the first lines of a work that would seize the mood — and social-media accounts — of so many people in the tumultuous year that was 2016.
A year later, Director Anais La Rocca teamed up with Maggie Smith to bring this poem to life in the short film “Good Bones”.
Good Bones is a heartfelt work that grapples with pain, injustice, unfairness and disillusionment— all in a fantastical story told through the eyes of a six year old girl and the voice of her mother.
Written, directed, produced and post produced by an all female team, this film embodies the power, strength and courage within women, and our responsibility to pass on and teach this courage to our little girls.
In the film, the mother takes on the role of a real estate agent: “I am trying/ to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real s***hole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.”
For the text of the poem, see Waxwing, where it originally appeared — or get hold of Smith’s 2017 collection, also titled Good Bones.
Never Say Never Say Never by Patrick James Errington
From British director Adele Myers, a film based on a poem by Patrick James Errington. Here’s the description from Vimeo:
Savouring their last moments, a couple struggle with letting go. They must, but breaking up is hard to do.
This short film is based on an original poem written by Patrick Errington. The poem was commended in the National Poetry Competition 2016, Poetry Society (UK). This film was commissioned by FilmPoem and original adaptation was produced entirely in Fujairah UAE.
The actors are Layla Al Khouri and Sanoop Din. For a full list of credits, see Poetry Film Live.
Rise by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner and Aka Niviana
Climate activists and poets, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner and Aka Niviana, travel to the latter’s home of Greenland to recite their collaborative poem, Rise, on a melting glacier that might threaten the former’s home nation of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific.
Dan Lin directed this poetry film for 350.org, which, oddly, only allows the Vimeo upload to be viewed on their website—which is unfortunate, because it includes subtitling options in Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Turkish, Russian, and Japanese. The above YouTube version, which Bill McKibben shared at The Guardian along with an accompanying essay, is unlisted but—at time of publication, at any rate—shareable. The former link includes some background by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner:
With the last few poems I’ve written, I’ve tried to balance the piece by grounding it in some sort of legend … For this particular poem, I struggled with finding the right legend. … The legend I ultimately chose was “Ao Aorōk In Io̗kwe” a legend from Ujae that was transcribed by Heynes Jeik. The Marshallese version of the legend is below. There is no exact translation at this time, but here is my own (somewhat rough) summary:
The legend features sisters from Ujae who loved and respected each other very much. One day they decided to have a juggling competition around the entire island. They began their juggling competition – when the eldest reached a certain spot by the edge of the reef, she dropped the shells rock she was juggling, and she suddenly turned into stone. The younger sister, who was following close behind, noticed this strangely shaped rock – when she came closer, she saw that it was her sister. In her grief, she decided to drop the rock she was juggling as well, choosing to turn to stone, so she could stay by her sister’s side. The moral of the story is the love that connected the two sisters.
I asked the group I was skyping with a few questions – why did the elder sister turn into a stone at that specific spot? Was that spot magical? They weren’t sure. But one of the members from the Curriculum Assessment Team offered that she noticed we have many stories that featured the creation of stone, or people turning to stone. We reflected on this a bit, and an observation was offered that stones are permanent – they never disappear, and that stones are a part of our culture as well. After our skype session, I received a message from Heynes Jeik: “…Ij bar kakememej iok bwe ekkar nan jar ke roritto ijoke, rej ba deka ej motan manit in ad, em aolep men ko bunnid rej erom deka, ej einwot juon men eo epan jako nan indeio.” Which loosely translates to, “I just want to remind you that according to our elders, stone is a part of our culture, and everything becomes stone, it’s something that will never disappear.”
I ultimately chose this legend because it features sisters, which I felt fit nicely into the concept of me and Aka as “sisters of ice and snow/sister of ocean and sand.” I also appreciated the concept of stone – the concept of permanence against the destructive forces of climate change. My friend, Lyz Soto, who regularly edits my work, helped me think it through further “the idea of choosing stone so you can always be a part of your home.” This, ultimately, became the declaration I chose to focus on – choosing stone to always be a part of our home.
Read the whole essay at 350.org, which also includes bios of the poets and filmmakers and the full text of the poem. And here’s how McKibben’s Guardian essay begins:
I’ve spent 30 years thinking about climate change – talking with scientists, economists and politicians about emission rates and carbon taxes and treaties. But the hardest idea to get across is also the simplest: we live on a planet, and that planet is breaking. Poets, it turns out, can deliver that message.
But they don’t watch impassively. Both are climate activists, and both have raised their voices in service of their homelands. Jetnil-Kijiner, 30, has been at it for years – she’s performed her work before the United Nations General Assembly and the Vatican. Niviana is newer to activism – just 23, she recited a poem at a recent Copenhagen climate protest, where she met a well-known glaciologist, Jason Box, and he, in turn, organised the complicated logistics of this glacier expedition.
Calls for work: some traditional film festivals that welcome poetry films
About a year ago, Dave Bonta, in “A Month of Women’s Poetry Film,” mused that videopoetry perhaps wasn’t prestigious enough yet to be dominated by male voices and visions, and invited comments and stories on that, or any of the other points he raised in his essay. So far, no one has taken him up on that invitation.
However, I have noticed one sign that may indicate that videopoetry is becoming more prestigious, or at least more mainstream: increasingly, traditional film festivals are starting to invite submissions of poetry films.
Filmmakers and poets looking to expand the audience for their work may want to consider some of these festivals, and the film festival submission websites that have recently come to dominate the entry process. For now, I’m going to concentrate on a few festivals with upcoming deadlines for poetry films on the FilmFreeway platform, which some of you may be familiar with already, since the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, the Weimar Poetry Film Award, and the Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival (among other poetry film festivals) are now listed there.
High Coast International Film Festival — the early bird deadline is September 23, 2018; several other deadlines follow until the final deadline on June 23, 2019; event dates August 30-31, 2019.
There is no special category for poetry films, but this 4th season Swedish festival seeks films with a “free voice” that experiment with the film medium “regardless of genre, thematics or method.” Their FilmFreeway page notes that they have programmed “wild experimental film poetry,” but submitters will have to pick a broader category to enter (narrative, documentary, or experimental). Fees for short films start at $10 for early bird submissions, and increase to $19 by the final deadline. The festival covers accommodations at a hotel near the festival venue for all selected filmmakers.
https://filmfreeway.com/HighCoastFilmFestival
Grecanica International Film Festival — the early bird deadline is October 31, 2018; other deadlines follow until the extended deadline on March 31, 2019; event dates May 17-19, 2019
This Italian festival, now in its second year, is looking for films promoting “human rights, dignity, equality, lands, peoples, cultures, linguistic or historical minorities, popular and ethnic music,” including “Graekanic and and Italian minorities poetry produced anywhere in the world.” Films in languages other than Italian must be subtitled in Italian. Fees start at $20 and go up for later deadlines.
https://filmfreeway.com/grecanicafilmfestival
All Together Now: A Celebration of Art, Film & Music — the early bird deadline is October 4, 2018; final deadline is February 28, 2019; event dates April 26-28, 2019
This is the inaugural year for this Michigan festival that will take place in an art gallery, where they plan to bring music and short films together over two weekends for “creative exchange.” This festival accepts short films under 20 minutes in length, and has a separate category for “poetry based films.” Fees start at $15 for the early bird deadline, and increase to $20 for the final deadline.
https://filmfreeway.com/AllTogetherNow
Trenton Film Festival — the regular deadline is October 1, 2018; final deadline is November 1, 2018; event dates March 28-31, 2019
This New Jersey festival is looking for cutting edge films from anywhere in the world completed after January 1, 2018. Poetry films are included in a kind of catch-all category — “Experimental, Music Video, Spoken Word Poetry … new media.” Submissions need to be 25 minutes or less. The early bird deadline has already passed, so bargain hunters are out of luck this year. The regular deadline fee is $20, and goes up to $30 for the late deadline.
https://filmfreeway.com/TrentonFilmFestival
So Limitless and Free — the late deadline is November 29, 2018; event date is December 8, 2018
Now in its second year, this Quebec festival focuses on “artistic films.” The organizers are obviously big fans of Jim Morrison and the Doors — they have a category for films that “Jim Morrison would have liked,” and offer a music prize for the best Doors cover. They also offer a prize for the best instrumental music for poetry, and have a separate category for film-poetry shorts under 25 minutes. The early deadlines have already passed; the fee for the late deadline is $10.
https://filmfreeway.com/SoLimitlessandFree
Realtime International Film Festival — regular deadline is December 31, 2018; late deadline is March 31, 2019; event dates are June 9-15, 2019
This festival out of Nigeria, now in its fourth year, is both a film festival with live screenings and an online festival/awards event. They offer an award for best poetry, and have a separate category for filmmakers who “wish to be eligible for the best spoken word award.” The early deadline has passed; fee for the regular deadline is $40, increasing to $60 for the late deadline. This festival has ambitious aims to be the “biggest … remotely accessible Festival in Africa,” and FilmFreeway notes that it is one of their 100 best reviewed festivals (based on participants’ postings), but in terms of the poetry film world, their submission fees are high.
https://filmfreeway.com/REALTIMEFILMFESTIVAL
Motion Pictures International Film Festival — early bird deadline is December 15, 2018; final deadline is July 5, 2019; event dates August 23-24, 2019
Now in its second year, this is a touring film festival that is planned to take place in a different location each year. The first festival was held in Nigeria; perhaps the second will be held in Canada, as there is an Alberta address listed on FilmFreeway. Their website is currently under construction, and their first festival just concluded at the end of August, so more news could be coming soon. They have a separate category for poetry films; the fee is $10 for any deadline.
https://filmfreeway.com/motionpicturesinternationalfilmfestival
Versi di Luce — regular deadline is November 5, 2018; event date March 21, 2019
Now in its eleventh year, this Italian festival located Modica and Gela is dedicated to Nobel prize winning poet Salvatore Quasimodo, who was born in Modica. The theme of this festival is cinema and poetry. The festival has a fairly broad interpretation of this, since they accept features, short films, and music videos inspired by their theme, but there is also a separate category for videopoetry and video art no more than five minutes in length, which can be based on any published or unpublished poem. The entry fee is $10.
https://filmfreeway.com/VersidiLuce
Miniature Film Festival — late deadline is October 8, 2018; event date is November 8, 2018
The theme for this Vancouver festival, now in its second year, is love. Submissions are limited to films one minute or less in length, and filmmakers are encouraged to take a “fun, broad interpretation …, such as love of something or someone, romantic love, looking for love, romantic comedy, love for or in nature, love of self, personal essay, video poetry or whatever.” The early deadlines have passed, including (alas) the earliest no fee deadline; the late deadline is $10. The festival director notes that submission fees go toward renting the venue and providing snacks for the screening.
https://filmfreeway.com/MiniatureFilmFestival
Finally, one poetry film festival that I only discovered because I was searching FilmFreeway for the term “poetry.”
Drop of water & soap bubble — Film contest on the Poetry by Joachim Ringelnatz — regular deadline is July 15, 2019; event date October 15, 2019
Several organizations have joined together to host the fourth competition dedicated to Ringelnatz, but the call for work is spearheaded by the Society for Contemporary Poetry in Leipzig. Ringelnatz is the pen name for artist and author Hans Botticher; according to Wikipedia, he is “best known for his wry poems, often using word play and sometimes bordering on nonsense poetry.” Participants can choose any of Ringelnatz’s poems, but the call for works notes that there is an audiobook of 39 selected poems (which includes five poems in English) that can be purchased and used optionally. There is no submission fee, but submitters must register on competition website, which will trigger an email with the exact competition conditions in an attachment. There are a variety of monetary and other prizes involved, some of them substantial.
https://filmfreeway.com/JoachimRingelnatzPoetryFilmContest
There are other film festival submission platforms besides FilmFreeway. If you’re interested in learning, here is one review article on the web that covers ten different platforms to get you started.
I’ve mainly worked the the two biggest platforms — FilmFreeway and Withoutabox. Withoutabox was the early standout; now that it has been integrated with Amazon and its sub-companies CreateSpace and IMDb, it remains the favorite of the largest film festivals, such as Sundance, Toronto, and Ann Arbor. CreateSpace does offer filmmakers opportunities to sell DVD’s or VOD on demand. FilmFreeway is the fast-growing newcomer that worked hard to sidestep all the criticisms faced by Withoutabox, and now hosts the vast majority of the smaller, less expensive festivals. I use both, because some festivals only use one or the other. One advantage of FilmFreeway for me is that you can update a project file very easily if you make editing changes. This is much more difficult on WIthoutabox.
Many poetry film festivals still use their own entry forms, or offer their own entry forms in addition to using FilmFreeway. Many poetry film festivals still offer free submissions. If it’s true that poetry film is becoming more mainstream, it is perhaps good to remember that that change will come with risks as well as benefits. In particular, in the larger independent film world, it’s hard to know what festivals are really a good match for a film when the databases are so large. FilmFreeway currently has 6960 festivals in its open and closed database, with 2471 currently open for submissions. Of those, 191 festivals are fee-free. In the larger film festival world, most filmmakers pay entry fees, throwing a lot of expensive darts to hit a very few targets. The only other alternative is to rely on social media, but only a few films go viral, and quality curation is in short supply. Thankfully, the videopoetry and poetry film community can rely on movingpoems.com, and as well as on all the websites and blogs cataloged on the Moving Poems’ list of links.
Ó Bhéal and Rabbit Heart festivals release shortlists
Cork, Ireland’s Ó Bhéal Poetry Film Festival yesterday released an illustrated, annotated program for their 2018 screenings, which are scheduled for 3:00 and 5:00 PM on Sunday, October 14. As in past years, the inclusion of descriptions for each film makes the list a useful resource even for those of us not able to attend the festival. View it here.
They join the Worcester, Massachusetts-based Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival, which released its own, longer (but unannotated) shortlists earlier in the week for their screenings on October 20. In contrast to Ó Bhéal, which will pick just one winner, RHPFF has seven competition categories plus Curator’s Choice and Showcase Features. Here’s the link.
It was good to see a mixture of new and familiar names on both festivals’ lists. (A third poetry film festival scheduled for October, Juteback, appears not to have released a program yet.) I look forward to catching up with many of these films when they appear on the web, and of course sharing my pick of the best at Moving Poems.
Tom Konyves, Kristian Pedersen and Nicholas Bertini at Poetryfilmkanal
Poetryfilmkanal, the Weimar-based website that also produces an annual print Poetry Film Magazine, has posted three new essays in English over the past month. First, the Italian author and animator Nicholas Bertini described the making of his experimental work in New Alphabets:
Encoding and decoding signs and shapes is the main focus of the research behind my work. It’s legitimate to say that communication is based on an alphabet, or better many alphabets, that lead back to writing. But what happens if, instead of a blank sheet having width and height, we have one including the dimension of time? Paradoxically a blank sheet that erases the hic et nunc of a mark, or that can contain hundreds or thousands.
Here shapes and signs, besides appearing in their two-dimensionality can mutate over time, allowing a level of communication that writing as we know it can not transmit. That’s what interests me in my research: the possibility to communicate through signs that can be decoded as new alphabets, thus including movement as part of the alphabet, like a sign or word.
In this process traditional writing is not left aside, there’s no intention to discredit or surpass it. Instead I find myself mixing this two languages, morphing and fusing them together.
On September 3, the prominent videopoet and theorist Tom Konyves weighed in with some Talking Points, which are divided into three sections: “Terms of service”; “Illustration and the function of the image”; and “Performance and the function of the poet’s body on screen”. Konyves’ points are well illustrated with embedded videos. I thought his consideration of literal interpretation in poetry film vs. the more allusive approach of videopoetry proper was especially interesting:
To convey a clear, unambiguous meaning of a pre-existing poem, the most effective visual approach an artist can take is a literal interpretation. While it presents a coherent relationship between word and image, any content on the image-track that is a direct representation of key words in the poem is bound to alert the viewer to a world view that values order, harmony and singular meanings.
Interviewed for BBC’s Sunday Feature: Crossing the Border – Poetry and Film, Alastair Cook commented on his 2013 filmpoem, Lifted, based on the poet Jo Bell’s experience at Lock 30 of the Trent & Mersey Canal, one of a series of canal-themed poems commissioned by the Canal & River Trust: »There is a literalness in this … I am visually illustrating what she is talking about,« which he then qualifies with »but very quietly, very much in the background.« In the background of the work, we can hear Jo Bell’s voice reciting the poem. It is accompanied by a series of (well-composed) shots at Lock 30: the canal, the water, the lock gates closing, close-up of the water, back to the lock gate, back to the water, extreme close-up of the lock gate, back to water, an extreme close-up tilt on the gate, back to water, back to the canal … This series of »establishing« shots does indeed convey the background to Bell’s poem. The shots say simply, quietly, Here. Here is where the poet gathered her observations and subsequently wrote the poem. Without ambiguity, the images connect the viewer with the spatial references in the poem. Jo Bell’s poem comes through unchanged, loud and clear. You have only to listen.
On the other hand, the world view revealed through a »metaphorical lens« cannot accept a coherent, orderly universe. Its approach takes for its subject the critique of conventional word-image associations, organizing its elements – in this genre by enlisting the image-track as the »dominant« element – to make associations surprising and »strange«, to be open to multiple interpretations of these associations and, most importantly, to use the unstable nature of language (the ambiguities in the text) to help us experience a videopoem in a new, playful, indirect way.
And most recently, the Norwegian animator Kristian Pedersen has a craft essay up, Graphic listening — “Visualizing The Bøyg: About my tribute to Oskar Fischingers concept of visual music in my film Bøygen (2016).” Pedersen has always been one of my favorite poetry animators, so it was great to read — and see, thanks to the copious illustrations — where one particular animation of his came from.
When making films tied to poetry or prose, I find abstraction to be a successful vessel. Like music, it can connect directly to emotion, and facilitate individual experience. I always turn to history of visual music – these works of art, some of them close to a century old, still stand as monuments of inspiration. The masters of abstract cinema paved such a vast area of experimentation, and stunningly beautiful works, there is always something new to learn from them. In every case, I always come back to Oskar Fischinger (1900–1967).*
This was especially significant with my visual music short Bøygen of 2016: From deep in the misty Norwegian mountains comes the unnerving sense of numbing apathy. This is The Boyg, in old Norwegian folklore known as a large, invisible serpent that seem to surround you and suggests you avoid challenges. Made famous by playwright Henrik Ibsen, the Boyg is today a term for a formless obstacle; lack of initiative, creeping anxiety or a problem difficult to untangle.
To express an abstract idea with an abstract visual language was a labyrinth of trial and error. But a successful marriage of sound and image can open a doorway directly into the synapses. Research for this project covered both ancient Norwegian folklore and film history. The starting point was a journey to the Center of Visual Music in February 2015.
Fascinating stuff. Do click through and read all three essays.
ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival to focus on US films
The ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival website has posted several announcements in English about the upcoming festival on the 27-30 September at Schloßtheater in Münster — though not, at the time of writing, the full programme yet. We’re told that 66 films were nominated from 1,200 entries to the five competitions, and that
Ten directors from eight countries followed the call to film this year’s festival poem “Endless wall-to-wall carpet (of the VIP foyer)” by Ann Cotten. Four of them will be shown at the festival in the presence of the filmmakers and the poet.
Also of note:
The focus of this year’s ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival is on the USA. Selected poetry films from this year’s entries will present the current facets of the US film and poetry scene. Readings and performances complete the range of films at the festival cinema Schloßtheater in Münster, a scientific lecture on the Beat Generation provides exciting background knowledge.
What drove the early representatives of the beat generation to the medium of film?
How do international filmmakers take up the poems of the Beat Generation in their poetry films today? In her lecture “Beat & Picture: A flashback and flash forward to the poetic and cinematic activities of the Beat Generation”, the specialist in American studies Dr. Martina Pfeiler invites us to take a closer look at the cinematic and lyrical heritage of the Beat Generation. The 90-minute lecture followed by a discussion will take place on Sunday, 30.9. at 1:30 p.m. in the Schloßtheater in Münster.
The whole series of events sounds pretty unmissable.
Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival releases longlist
Rabbit Heart, the western Massachusetts-based poetry film festival, released its 2018 longlist this week. View it on their website. Many of the names will be familiar to Moving Poems readers, and because Rabbit Heart uniquely requires poets to be directly involved in the making of the films, it’s a useful reference list of some of the currently most active poet-filmmakers around the world.
In a press release, the organizers note that
The festival, due to take place in Worcester on October 20th, 2018 focuses on short films that illustrate original poems, all of which are non-performance based (read: no footage of the poems being performed). This year Rabbit Heart received submissions from 29 countries, across 6 continents […]
Rabbit Heart will be awarding $800 prizes in seven categories this year: Best Overall Production, Best Animated, Best Music/Sound, Best Smartphone Production, Best Under 1 Minute, Best Valentine, and the Shoots! Youth Prize.
Tickets to the awards ceremony and the matinee screening are now on sale.
