Where to watch poetry films in April
April is Poetry Month in the U.S. and Canada, so it’s no surprise that a couple of major poetry film festivals are held then. First up: Houston’s REELPoetry Festival.
Online April 1-5, 2024
In Person April 6-7, 2024
922 Holman St, Houston, TX 77002
REELpoetry/HoustonTX 2024 is an international poetry film Festival. This week long event showcases 100+ screenings under 6 minutes from 20 different countries. Connect with international curators and presenters in real time online, and in-person on the weekend; watch world premieres from Houston creatives; experience ASL poetry and performances; join use for two fabulous after parties.
Then toward the end of the month, it’s Seattle’s Cadence Video Poetry Festival.
Verse meets visuals in motion at Northwest Film Forum (NWFF) in April 2024. Cadence Video Poetry Festival, presented by Northwest Film Forum, programmed in collaboration with Seattle author Chelsea Werner-Jatzke and intermedia artist Rana San, is a series of screenings, workshops, and discussions on the genre of video poetry, taking place annually during National Poetry Month. This year’s festival takes place in-person April 19–21 and online April 19–28. Cadence approaches video poetry as a literary genre presented as visual media, cultivating new meaning from the combination of text and moving image.
In its seventh year, Cadence Video Poetry Festival remains the only festival dedicated to the form in the Pacific Northwest. The festival program includes four themed screenings with works selected from an open call for submissions, including video poetry by the 2024 screening team and jurors.
“This year, we did away with the submission categories the festival has had in place for the last six years. Moving away from submissions organized by how they were made (collaboration, video by poets, etc) places further emphasis on what is being made in the video poetry genre,” says co-director Chelsea Werner-Jatzke. “For the first time, a screening team of prior Cadence Artists-in-Residence helped program the festival, broadening the diversity of perspectives considering the video poetry that is screened as part of Cadence.”
“The 2024 festival includes video poems from 20 countries in 11 languages with a strong Pacific Northwest contingent, a quarter of the works representing artists based in Washington, British Columbia, and Montana,” notes co-director Rana San. “In conjunction with the online and onsite festival screenings and workshops, there will be gatherings for artists and audiences to connect in-person and virtually. We’re also collaborating with Frye Art Museum again to host a special satellite screening and artist discussion in May following the fest.”
Meanwhile, in Weimar, Germany, though details so far remain scant, one is advised on the Poetryfilmtage Instagram account to
SAVE THE DATES – Lit.Collage x Poetryfilmtage 2024
This year we are setting with „Lit.Collage“ a special accent. The collage and poetry festival is combined with our film festival and is meant for those who enjoy experimenting with editing techniques and sharing them with others.
…so as you can see: this year we have a lot more action going on and you can join our festival from the 13th of April till the 1st of June. Make sure you’ll save the dates! 🤩
More details on the individual events will follow soon.
It’s great that people anywhere in the world with a good internet connection can virtually attend these festivals, but I am just as excited by another new trend: more and more general poetry festivals are including film and video in various innovative ways. In Madison, Wisconsin, for example, the Hawthorn Public Library will be screening “some of our favorite video poems featured in the first four years of the Midwest Video Poetry Fest,” and in Newtown, Pennsylvania, poet Vasiliki Katsarou will be screening her feature film Fruitlands 1843. So be sure to support your local poetry scene!
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Dave Bonta is a poet, editor, and web publisher from the Appalachian mountains of central Pennsylvania.
[…] my recent round-up of where to watch poetry films this month, I forgot to include Athens! The International Video Poetry Festival, as it’s called these […]