Posts By Dave Bonta
Daisy Chain by Lucy English
A recent addition to Lucy English’s ambitious, multi-filmmaker Book of Hours project, this time from director Eduardo Yagüe—his third for the project, I think—with music by Podington Bear, voiceover by Rebecca Tantony, and an appearance by the actress Gabriella Roy. The stark contrast between the wintry footage and the summery text creates an interesting spark gap for the imagination to leap.
Hybrid by Nigel Wells
A recent video by Marie Craven extends her experimentation with kinestatic videopoetry in an ekphrastic direction. She described the process in a public Facebook post (links added):
Hybrid: a new collaborative video. The process of making it started with the original art by Marguerite de Mosa. Then came the music by SK123. Then finally the words, written by Nigel Wells in response to an early draft of the video. It’s a change in the order of how I usually put things together for a videopoem, and it was interesting trying things this way. Thanks to the great collaborators, Marguerite, Steve and Nigel, for working with me on this!
Dog by Richard Scott
An animation by Kate Jessop:
A young man comes to terms with his sexuality and confronts his bully in his home neighbourhood of Merton (London).
Specially commissioned for the Southbank Festival of Neighbourhood 2013, adapted from the poem by Richard Scott.
Click through to Vimeo for the text of the poem (or watch the newly uploaded version with subtitles).
Call for submissions: Rendez-vous vidéo-poésie du Festival de la poésie de Montréal 2017
I missed it last year (in part because I’m completely out of the loop with the Francophone videopoetry scene), but for the second year in a row, the Montreal Poetry Festival will include a videopoetry competition. Entries must have been made in 2016 or 2017, and either be the work of a Quebec artist or include extracts from Quebec poems. The deadline is March 6.
Video-poetry Rendez-vous will take place in the programming of the upcoming Montreal Poetry Festival, which runs from May 29 to June 4, 2017.
10 videopoemes will be selected to be screened at an evening at the Festival.
A jury of active members of the poetic and video community will present a prize of $ 500 to the winner of the competition.
Thus Google Translate. Here’s the whole call in French. It’s not clear whether videopoems in the other languages of Quebec, such as English or Cree–Montagnais–Naskapi, would be considered.
Marchant grenu / Walking Grainy by Henri Michaux
This film version of an Henri Michaux poem by Francois Vogel was one of my favorites at the 2014 ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival. The program description:
A whimsical look at movement in the city. While reciting the poem, Francois Vogel »walks grainy« on the stairs of Montmartre, in Paris.
For this version, Vogel recites an English translation of the poem, but if you know French, the original is also on Vimeo.
(Hat-tip: ZEBRA Poetry Film Club.)
Rapunzel Brings Her Women’s Studies Class to the Tower by Susan J. Erickson
Bellingham, Washington-based poet Susan J. Erickson reads a poem from her 2016 collection Lauren Bacall Shares a Limousine in this film by poet and editor Ellie A. Rogers. The soundtrack is by Louis McLaughlin.
Rogers has just blogged about making the film:
Susan J. Erickson has red cowboy boots and impeccable diction. She’s a poet hero of mine who I met back in the land of Douglas fir, though we’re both ladies of the 10,000 lakes.
Sue won the Brick Road Poetry Press prize last year, and her book, Lauren Bacall Shares a Limousine, is out now. Her collection of lady persona poems is tonally diverse, smart, and powerful.
Sue asked me to make a book trailer for her. We chose to work with her poem “Rapunzel Brings Her Women’s Studies Class to the Tower” partially because I now live near a giant bell tower and tracts of forest, but mostly because this poem is a linchpin poem. Rapunzel is trying to “relinquish the rib of victimhood.” She pushes back against the story we tell about her. She tells her class “your voices are searchlights that can sweep the horizon to reveal fault lines and illuminate passage.” What a good lesson.
Âne Dormant / Donkey Sleeping by Jacques Prévert
A charming animation made for French television in 2014 by Caroline Lefèvre. (There’s also a version without subtitles.) It’s one of thirteen shorts made by different directors for the collection “En Sortant de L’École,” a televised tribute to Prévert. For more on the making of Âne Dormant, see the blog.
Call for Entries: Juteback Poetry Film Festival 2017
The late, lamented Body Electric Poetry Film Festival is back with a new name! The Juteback Poetry Film Festival will take place on May 20th at the Lyric Cinema Cafe in Fort Collins, Colorado. Festival director R.W. Perkins will collaborate with Matt Mullins to program the festival. They note:
At the Juteback Poetry Film Festival we are looking for innovative and technically sound filmmaking, coupled with a strong grasp of poetics. It is our hope to showcase a wide range of talented film-poets from around the world to best represent the budding art form of videopoetry.
Submit online through the website. I’ll paste in the instructions:
THE JUTEBACK POETRY FILM FESTIVAL SUBMISSION GUIDE
- All films must be submitted online. Please use the form below to complete your submission. To submit please load your film to Youtube, Vimeo or media sharing site of your choice, then provide the link in your submission. If you choose to use a privacy setting on either Youtube or Vimeo please be sure to provide us with a proper access code to view your film.
- All films must be completed before the deadline of April. 16th, 2017. As long as your film has been completed before the April 16th deadline please feel free to submit.
- All non-English films must have English sub-titles.
- All films selected for the festival grant Juteback Productions, LLC the rights to use all video images and press materials from the film for promotional purposes.
- Juteback Productions, LLC is permitted to retain copies of each film selected as part of our festival library and for media educational use.
- You may submit more than one film, please repeat process for each entry.
- Films must be no more than 15 minutes in duration.
Submit here. And follow the festival on Facebook and Twitter.
Archipelago by Conceição Lima
Moving Poems’ first poet from São Tomé and Príncipe, Conceição Lima, is featured in this ultra-short but effective video by David Shook filmed in São Tomé earlier this month. The poem is from her second collection, A Dolorosa Raiz de Micondó, and if its brevity left you hungry for more, check out the four additional poems Shook translated for World Literature Today. There are also three of Lima’s poems in translation by Amanda Hopkinson at Words Without Borders.
“Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry” opens with four-minute filmpoem
Watch it at The Wrap.
A powerful, prophetic poem by Wendell Berry opens the film Look & See (previously titled The Seer, but changed at Berry’s request) by Laura Dunn and Jef Sewell, which is playing at the Sundance Film Festival as part of The New Climate program. Here’s the description on the Sundance Institute website:
Director Laura Dunn returns to the Festival with this fitting follow-up to her acclaimed documentary, The Unforeseen (2007 Sundance Film Festival). Her latest film, Look and See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry, premiered at the SXSW Film Festival, where it received a Special Jury Award for visual design.
This gorgeously realized look at the decline of modern U.S. agrarian culture is highlighted through the writings and reflections of author Wendell Berry, who embedded himself in rural life upon returning home to Kentucky in 1965. Writing from a long wooden desk overlooking the landscape, Berry used that vantage point to eloquently praise the benefits of a life deeply connected to the land. Since then, society has shifted dramatically, with mass development of rural areas and corporate farming practices replacing the roles of small family farms.
In this visually stunning ode to a changing cultural landscape, rare photographs blend with farmers and family members expressing their own stories. Using original wood engravings to frame chapters, Look And See explores the graceful intersection between art, life, and the natural world.
The film is available for pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD.
Now is the Time by Lucy English
From the filmmaking duo Katia Viscogliosi and Francis Magnenot, AKA Cinéma Fragile, a new addition to UK writer and poetry-film expert Lucy English‘s Book of Hours project. The voiceover (by Viscogliosi, I’m guessing) is very effective, but her accent may present occasional difficulties for some listeners, so they’ve helpfully supplied subtitles — click the CC icon.
