Posts By Dave Bonta
Call for submissions: Weimar Poetry Film Award
Once again, the annual backup_festival at Bauhaus University and the Literary Society of Thuringia are cooperating to sponsor a poetry film prize in association with Poetryfilmkanal. The 2018 Weimarer Poetryfilmpreis is now open for submissions. Here’s the English version of their bilingual call:
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Through the new film award, backup_festival and Literarische Gesellschaft Thüringen e.V. (LGT) are looking for innovative poetry films. Filmmakers from any nation and of any age are welcome to participate with up to three short films of up to 8:00 mins, which should explore the relation between film and written poetry in an innovative, straightforward way. Films that are produced before 2015 will not be considered. From all submitted films selected for the festival competition three Jury members will choose the winner of the main prize (1000 €). Moreover, an audience award of 250 € will be awarded.
The competition »Weimar Poetry Film Award« is financed by Kulturstiftung des Freistaats Thüringen, Thüringer Staatskanzlei and the City of Weimar.
Deadline: January 31th, 2018.
Form for submissions [pdf] by mail or e-mail.
Literarische Gesellschaft Thüringen e. V.
Marktstraße 2–4
99423 Weimar, Germany
Email: info@poetryfilmkanal.de
The »Weimar Poetry Film Award« call for entries is international. For the submission send with the other informations a quotable text of the related poem in German or English.
Presentation of awards: June 2nd, 2018.
More information about the program: www.backup-festival.de.
Link.
Apartment Living by Meghan O’Rourke
Elizabeth Masucci directs and stars in this adaptation of “Apartment Living” by Meghan O’Rourke — the second installment in Masucci’s ambitious poetry short film anthology series (Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” was the first).
It’s always great to see professionally made, narrative cinema-style poetry films that seek to inhabit a poem and take it in new directions rather than just using it as a jumping-off point. Apartment Living compares very favorably with other recent, stand-out films of this type such as Lotus Hannon’s The Expiration (based on John Donne) and Laura Scrivano’s A Lovesong (based on Prufrock).
Endellion — excerpts from a poem by Emma McGordon
Filmmaker Rhiannon Tate collaborated on this film with spoken word poet Emma McGordon and composer David John Roche. Endellion was “produced as part of Endelienta‘s Artists in Residence 2017, held in St Endellion, North Cornwall,” according to the Vimeo description.
Hat-tip: the Poetry Film Live group on Facebook.
Stolen Moments by Luz Emma Cañas
Ella Quinn was 17 years old when she directed this film written by Luz Emma Cañas. It’s the winner of the Shoots! Youth Prize and finalist for Best Overall Production at Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival 2017. A new addition to the festival this year, the Shoots! Youth Prize was sponsored by the Worcester County Poetry Association and, judging from the finalists, received some very high-quality submissions.
See the PARTICL3 blog for more about all the members of the production team for Stolen Moments. Ella Quinn’s bio gives some background:
Ella is part of the family production team, PARTICL3, along with her brother Adrian Miles and mother Luz Emma. She served as Creative Director on their first short film, Pas de Deux, which was “Official Selection” at four international film festivals. She also contributed to the fine details of production from script editing to wardrobe selection. Stolen Moments is Ella’s directorial debut and is “Official Selection” at two film festivals for young filmmakers, Young Filmmakers Film Festival and Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival.
And here’s the synopsis:
Stolen Moments is the third in a series of four dance shorts that tell stories of women of color, relationships and intimacy. This story takes place during the Roaring Twenties. From fashion to sexuality, Evelyn is breaking free from societal norms established by the Victorian Era. She is the center of a love triangle with two ladies, Harper and Lily. One love is repressed while the other is realized but not publicly. Like Pas de Deux, our debut film, there is no dialogue in this short. It relies on poetry and visuals to tell the story. The film features three Sufi poems from the book, “Stolen Moments: A Lover’s Recourse,” by Luz Emma Cañas Madrigal who also produced and acts in both films.
The Laundry Can Wait by Cyril Wong
https://vimeo.com/168577485
The winner in the Best Valentine category at Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival 2017, as well as a finalist for Best Overall Production. Director Sarah Howell (Dream Bravely) describes it on Vimeo as
An ode to lazy Sundays and love. This visual poem will have your heart sighing.
Performed and written by Singaporean artist, Cyril Wong (cyrilwong.wordpress.com/)
Yvonne Mak as ‘The Girl’
Pooja Dargan as ‘The Girlfriend’
Shot and edited by Sarah Howell.Produced as part of Dream Bravely’s visual poem series featuring some of the top Singaporean spoken word artists.
Black Woman by Olufunke Adeniyi
“Shot with a 16mm film Bolex, this film depicts an identity that has always existed, but rarely acknowledged,” notes poet-filmmaker Olufunke Adeniyi on her Tumblr blog. Black Woman won Best Production 1 Minute or Under at Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival 2017, and was a finalist in both the Best Sound/Music and Best Overall Production categories. Toks Adeniyi is the actress and Faith Osunde provided the voiceover; the score is by Olufunke Adeniyi and Jay Moh Productions.
A Scientist’s Advice on Healing by Christy Ducker
The winner for Best Animation at Rabbit Heart Poetry Festival 2017, where it was also a finalist for Best Overall Production. Filmmaker Kate Sweeney notes in her c.v. that the 2016 film is a “2.05 min hand-drawn animation. In collaboration with poet Christy Ducker and Centre for Chronic Diseases, York. Funded by Wellcome Trust.” It’s one of at least two films that came from that collaboration, as well as a pamphlet of photography and poetry called Messenger.
Drawing on the science of immunology, Messenger explores how we wound and how we heal. Whether the focus is a tiny molecule or a global problem, Christy Ducker’s succinct poems offer ‘hope and a warning’. Illustrated throughout by Kate Sweeney’s striking photographs, Messenger shuttles between science and art to suggest alternative ways of looking at recovery.
For more on Ducker, see her website.
Dancing Lesson by Rachel Kann
I’ve been championing the dance category of videopoetry for years, so I was pleased to see this worthy representative of it take the top honors at last weekend’s Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival. Written and performed by “modern-day mystic” Rachel Kann, with choreography by her and Jhon Gonzalez, and directed by Brad (Bradford L.) Cooper, it won Best Overall Production and Best Sound/Music (the work of Cooper and Atom Smith). See YouTube for the complete credits and Hevria for the text.
Call for poetry submissions and filmmaker applications: Visible Poetry Project
The Visible Poetry Project, which released thirty poetry films—one a day—during April last year, and held several screenings in New York and Beijing, is aiming to do this same in 2018.
The Visible Poetry Project was founded in 2017 with the goal of bringing together a collective of filmmakers to create a series of videos that present poems as short films. Drawing from works created by renowned poets, including Neil Gaiman and Tato Laviera, as well as emerging poets, the Visible Poetry Project strives to make poetry accessible, exploring how we can recreate and experience poems through the medium of film.
Throughout the month of April – National Poetry Month – we release one visual poem each day. An exercise in translation and a reclamation of both poetic and film discourses, the resulting thirty videos explore how we read, interpret, visualize, and hear poetry.
Submissions are now open for the Visible Poetry Project 2018 series. If you would like to be involved with the Visible Poetry Project, or have any questions about our organization, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at visiblepoetryproject@gmail.com.
Here are the guidelines for filmmakers.
The Visible Poetry Project strives to emphasize the diversity of the global film community, and so encourage you to apply regardless of background or circumstance. Whether filmmaking is your hobby, profession, private outlet, or public expression, your work is welcome.
Within your application, please provide a reel and/or links to previous films you’ve created. All work samples must be original, and you must be one of the main contributors. You may submit up to three links. We recommend submitting samples that you believe to be representative of the greater styles and themes in your work. If you are accepted, this will help inform which poet you may get paired with.
You may apply as part of a team (up to two filmmakers). If you are applying as part of a team, please submit only one application. Please include links to reels for both collaborators, and send an email to visiblepoetryproject@gmail.com, CC’ing your co-director.
If you are a producer, director of photography, or editor, and are interested in being involved in the 2018 series, please email visiblepoetryproject@gmail.com.
Click through to submit an application. For poets, there’s a similar openness to all backgrounds and levels of professionalism. There’s a reading fee of just $2.75, though “an additional donation beyond this amount is suggested, and will go towards Visible Poetry Project’s operating expenses for the 2018 series.” Here’s the link to submit poetry.
Out of Reach (Rain Night) by Jorge Díaz Martínez
A 2014 film by Pablo Diartinez and Erik Parys that’s been out of reach to web viewers until now, making the indie film festival rounds and racking up a bunch of awards — and rightfully so. It’s a beautiful film. Here’s the summary from IMDb:
‘Out of reach (rain night)’ is the first installment in ‘From the pages of Album’, a series of short films adapting the poetry of Jorge Diaz Martinez to the screen in a collage of animated graphics, texts and live action. ‘Out of reach (rain night)’ finds the series’ protagonist, a nameless poet in Brussels, seeking shelter and a place to sleep in a tram stop, while memories of lost friendship and love invade his clouded mind and the screen. The poem for this episode, a ‘found object’, paints a state of incommunicado and evasion.
Music and sound are by T.S.E.G. (Thomas Giry). For more on the poet, see his blog; the Pages of Album has its own website and Facebook page. I’ll be following the progress of this “fusion cinema poetry book” with great interest.
