2019 Weimar Poetry Film Award to focus on Spanish-language poetry film scene

A couple of recent posts at Poetryfilmkanal unveiled a unique focus for this year’s Weimar Poetry Film Award and screening. First they announced the programme, which includes some portions in English:

Poetry films from Spain and Latin America

This year, the Weimar Poetry Film Award aims to be a forum for the Spanish-language poetry film scene. With a selection of short films from Spain and Latin America we try to present important positions and centers of the Iberoamerican video poetry. We also want to ask how to improve the visibility and perception of poetry film in Latin America. A main focus will be on Colombia.

Guests: Timo Berger (Berlin), Luis José Galvis Diaz (Colombia), Sonja Hofmann (Cologne), Belén Montero (Spain), Celia Parra (Spain), Cecilia Traslaviña (Colombia).

[…]

The poetry film, one likes to say, is almost as old as film history. From the beginning we find adaptations of poems in the moving image. At the same time, film history was also influenced by poetry in other ways. Many filmmakers were inspired by poets and poems to develop a particularly poetic imagery. But what is this »Cinema of Poetry« (Pasolini) offering for the poetry film genre? Can and should one attach to the poetic auteur cinema in the cinematic adaptations of poems? The lectures by Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel (Berlin), Theresia Prammer (Berlin), Lia Martyn (Potsdam), and Tom Konyves (Montreal / Canada) are dealing with the avant-garde film, Pasolini, Tarkowski, and the fundamental questions about the relationship between poetry and film.

[…]

Colombia is the host country of the 20th backup festival. With a selection from the program of the Bogotá Short Film Festival, we are giving an impression of what is waiting for you at the next festival. The anniversary backup will take place from November 27th to December 1st 2019.

[…]

The third edition of the poetry film program »lab/p« has been realized as an Egyptian-German coproduction of OSTPOL Leipzig and Fig Leaf Studios Alexandria. Inspired by the topic »Identity« authors and filmmakers created jointly in 6 international teams 6 short films.

The animation and experimental films of»lab/p 3« take us – each with its unique artistic signature – on an adventure beyond the common aesthetics. They invite us emotionally, politically, ironically and playfully to reflect upon »Identity« in an intercultural context.

[…]

All Friends of poetry and short film can experience again at our award ceremony, what is going on in the contemporary poetry film scene. Our one-hour program features nominated films selected from 250 international submissions. The Spanish poet and producer Celia Parra will read, as poetic opening, from her new book of poetry Pantallas/Screens. The award ceremony will be presented by our jury team Belén Montero, Sonja Hofmann, and Timo Berger. Afterwards, we are offering drinks and Colombian live music in the lounge of the Lichthaus cinema.

[…]

Screening of the documentary Verses & Frames (Spain 2017, 75 min)

Verses & Frames, produced from Galicia (Spain) has been considered the first documentary in the world about the international videopoetry scene. Its intention is giving voice to some of the main videopoets and portraying the emotions that videopoetry arises. Verses & Frames is an emotionaly journey towards the discovery of an increasingly popular artistic phenomenon. Poets and filmmakers share how they see life through this genre and help answer the question: what is this videopoetry thing?

(Click through for times, dates and locations.)

Another post on Poetryfilmkanal this past week introduced the jury for the 2019 competition: Belén Montero, Sonja Hofmann, and Timo Berger. Montero is the director of the documentary on videopoetry mentioned above, Versogramas (which I reviewed last year), and the other two are experts on Latin American poetry, literature and film — a perfect fit for this year’s focus. Check out their bios.

This is a very ambitious and exciting line-up, and I’d encourage anyone who can make it to go. Weimar is a lovely small city, not to mention a site of pilgrimage for devotees of Goethe and Schiller, and the new Bauhaus Museum has just opened in time for the 100th anniversary of the 20th century’s most influential design movement.