Posts By Dave Bonta
Call for entries: ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival 2023
It’s that time again!
In 2023, the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival is inviting entries for the International Poetry Film Competition! Eligible for entry are short films, based on poems of no more than 15 minutes duration, produced in or after 2022. All languages are allowed. The competition winners will be awarded prize money. A program committee will select films for the International Competition and for all other festival programs. The winning films will be chosen by a jury composed of representatives from the worlds of poetry, film, and media.
Closing date for entries: 1 June 2023 (postmark date)
If you have any questions, please contact: zebra@haus-fuer-poesie.org
For submission, please use the FilmFreeway portal: ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival – FilmFreeway
Visit FilmFreeway also for the full guidelines.
Haibun films still needed for our film festival!
One month ago, we invited submissions
for a screening of haibun poetry films at the biennial Haiku North America conference, to be held in Cincinnati, Ohio from June 28-July 2, 2023. Moving Poems is an official co-sponsor, and we’ll be the ones selecting the films. Winning films will be screened at the conference and published at Moving Poems.
We required filmmakers to use one of our provided texts, among other quite specific guidelines on FilmFreeway… which have been completely ignored by hundreds of filmmakers from around the world, much to my chagrin. I may have something to say about FilmFreeway’s appalling spam submissions problem later, but today I’d like to emphasize the bright side: So far we’ve gotten two strong submissions that follow the guidelines, and I’m grateful to both filmmakers. We just need a few more. Check out these haibun (password: haibun) and tell me there aren’t a ton of great potential films here! The deadline is March 15.
so the war would know i’m here by Yahya Ashour
A powerful evocation of life under aerial bombardment. Palestinian poet Yahya Ashour recites his work in English—two poems translated with the director, Andrew Burgess, who provided some background in an email:
This film visualizes two of Yahya Ashour’s poems about growing up during wars in Gaza. The setting, visual motifs, and sound design work embody the physical experience of danger — hiding, being next, recollecting damage — and create an immersive experience. This film was produced through the University of Iowa International Writing Program by NonProphet Media. [link added]
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by William Butler Yeats
A new film by Dutch artist Pat van Boeckel, featuring some stunning footage from Morocco. Yeats’ poem, originally known as Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven at first publication in 1899, also appeared
in the films Equilibrium, 84 Charing Cross Road and the Korean film Dasepo Naughty Girls. The poem is recited by the character Brendan in the final episode of season 3 of the BBC series Ballykissangel.
The Wikipedia article goes on to list multiple musical settings and uses in novels. Being well out of copyright surely has something to do with that.
Van Boeckel is a regular at Moving Poems, and you can watch more of his videopoems on his website.
Gray-Headed Schoolchildren by Charles Simic
Charles Simic has died. Word broke on Twitter a few hours ago, and I’ve been thinking about Simic’s impact as a poet and as a translator—I wouldn’t know Vasko Popa, Ivan Lalic or even the great Novica Tadic had Simic not introduced them to the Anglophone world.
I’m not sure that Simic’s interest in translation extended to videopoetry, however; I don’t believe he ever collaborated with a filmmaker. I found a few unofficial videos back in the early years of this site, and another search today turned up a couple more good ones. Gray-Headed Schoolchildren is a 2011 film by Tess Masero Brioso with voiceover by Victor Feldman, who also stars (along with Zach Donnelly). I’m torn about the soundtrack: Adagio for Strings is kind of a cliché at this point, but it’s also not a bad fit. Regardless, as someone getting on years myself, the poem and film hit me right in the feels.
Moving Poems and Haiku North America welcome submissions for haibun film festival
Film submissions open January 1 for a screening of haibun poetry films at the biennial Haiku North America conference, to be held in Cincinnati, Ohio from June 28-July 2, 2023. Moving Poems is an official co-sponsor, and we’ll be the ones selecting the films. Winning films will be screened at the conference and published at Moving Poems.
What is haibun?
“Haibun” means “haiku prose” in Japanese. It’s a hybrid genre combining one or more haiku with lyrical prose, and it’s this juxtaposition, we believe, that makes it such a good fit with videopoetry or poetry film, where the artful juxtaposition of disparate parts is so central. Michael Dylan Welch, who organized the first English-language haibun contest in 1996, notes that “The key to the art of haibun is the graceful pairing of poem and prose, where the poem links to the prose yet shifts away from it, in much the same way that verses relate to each other in a renku [linked verse sequence] by linking and leaping.” (Click through to his website for examples and links.)
There aren’t a whole lot of good examples of haibun videos to point to yet, but that’s one of the things we’re hoping to change with this contest.
Rules and guidelines
Films/videos must use one of the ten provided haibun, which were selected by HNA from a separate, earlier contest that had 229 submissions. Visit this page https://movingpoems.com/2023-haibun-film-festival-texts-for-filmmakers/ and input the password: haibun. These are all unpublished poems whose authors have given permission for this contest only.*
Please include the haibun author’s name in the description to help us screen out spam submissions. The author’s name should also be included in on-screen credits.
Filmmakers may opt to use some rather than all of the text, if the author is OK with it. (We are happy to put them in touch with each other. Use the Contact form.) But the result should still look and sound like a haibun.
It’s entirely up to the filmmakers how to present the prose and poetry—as text on screen or voiceover, or some combination of the two. We also don’t want to discourage more experimental approaches, such as attempting to translate some of the prose portion of a haibun into wordless film poetry or narrative filmmaking, though that does of course come with a higher risk of rejection.
Films may be as long as seven minutes, but we encourage run times of 3-5 minutes.
Films must be submitted through FilmFreeway.
Submissions open January 1, 2023 and close March 15.
Selections will be announced on May 1.
*Password protection helps preserve the unpublished status of the texts, so that those not chosen for films may be submitted for publication elsewhere.
Spellbound by Emily Brontë
In Emily Brontë’s world, a young woman is under a spell of blind forces of compulsion acting to draw her towards an unnamed darkness from which she cannot escape.
This wonderfully atmospheric 16mm film by Patrick Müller seems perfect for the solstice. Here’s the director’s statement:
Shot on 16mm film during the pandemic lockdown in an unusual dark and freezing cold winter of 2021, I used an old Bolex camera from 1963 for my poetry film. Chemnitz-based musician Wellenvorm created an unique original music for it using only one instrument: an EMS Synthi A Portabella.
Its awards include Best Experimental Short at the 2022 Caligari – Festival Internacional de Cine de Terror, and Best Horror Short at the 14th Philadelphia Independent Film Festival in 2021. The voiceover is by Sarah Kempton. For more information, visit the film’s webpage.
Call for Work: Já Poetry Film Competition 2023
An international theater festival in Lisbon has added a poetry film competition, with award-winning UK filmpoet Janet Lees as judge. Here’s the call.
Venue: CASA FERNANDO PESSOA: Rua Coelho da Rocha, 16-18 Campo de Ourique, 1250-088 Lisboa, Portugal
This international Poetry Film happening at Casa Fernando Pessoa is part of JÁ FEST, organized 11 – 16 April 2023 by Já International Theatre.
It is open to emerging and experienced artists, first-time videographers, filmmakers and poets. JÁFEST is supported by the Europa Criativa Program so we welcome POETRY FILM submissions from emerging European artists. […]
The festival offers a platform for sharing visual narratives through two In-Competition sections:
THEME 1: SEPARATION & BELONGING
In our turbulent world Separation and Belonging raises the question of where and to whom we belong. To ourselves, perhaps? To nature, to memories, to family, to love, to dreams fulfilled and unfulfilled? Until we parted we did not know we could feel so strongly, we did not know that our good memories could shrivel and vanish, that we may no longer find comfort in them. Through separation we learn a lot about ourselves and our world, don’t we?
Jury President Janet Lees: “Separation and Belonging is a nuanced theme which gives poets and filmmakers a myriad of ways to respond. Separation can remind us of and bring us back to what’s truly important. As for belonging, who, what and where do we belong to – and what, if anything, truly belongs to us? Is belonging always a positive thing, or can it be something that precipitates separation, as in belonging in the sense of ownership? I love this theme because it’s so broad, and gives people freedom within a framework. There is the focus, the ‘container’, of having a specific theme, and there is the freedom of having almost limitless ways to respond to it.”
Inspirations and poems can come from any time period, or it can be your own vers libre.
THEME 2: DISQUIET! said PESSOA, or DESASSOSSEGO COM FERNANDO PESSOA
We invite filmmakers inspired by Pessoa’s work to submit a poetry film base on one of his poems or quotations to the Disquiet! said Pessoa, or Desassossego com Fernando Pessoa section in the competition.
For more details and to submit, visit FilmFreeway.
Prodigal Daughters by Vasiliki Katsarou
A film by New Jersey-based poet Vasiliki Katsarou, using text from William Gass’s translation of Rilke’s novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge and images by Andrew David King. There wasn’t any description on Vimeo, so I contacted Katsarou to ask if she might have an artist’s statement. Here’s what she shared:
Prodigal Daughters is a collage video poem I made with Andrew David King. I’m a poet, teaching artist and publisher who holds an MFA in filmmaking, and who made a 35mm film back in the 20th century. My collaborator Andrew, whose footage this is, is a journalist, poet and book artist based in San Francisco. Our mission was to make two (one minute) cellphone films combining image and text. Prodigal Daughters was put together in serendipitous fashion, when I came across a striking passage (that I read in voiceover) from William Gass’ introduction to Rilke’s classic novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Gass is writing about Rilke, who’s writing about young women standing in awe before hanging tapestries in a medieval museum. For me, something about this film poem seems to vault generations and art forms. It answers a question I had about how a film poem can exist independently of my own poetry and celluloid film work. It has the potential to serve as a dream instance, where meaning lies not solely in visual image nor words, but in their spontaneous combustion.
Prodigal Daughters was made during a workshop led by experimental filmmaker Lynne Sachs for the Flowchart Foundation. For more on my current work at Solitude Hill Press, please see solitudehill.com.
Blame the Fox by Jane Lovell
Devon-based poet Jane Lovell‘s poem won the 2022 Nature and Place Poetry Competition from Rialto, where the poem also appears in dead-tree media. Filmmaker Janet Lees remarked on Instagram that collaborating on the film with Lovell was “a genuinely unforgettable experience”. I can see why: the result is wondrous and moving, reminding me of everything I love about this hybrid genre.
When it feels hot, that rage against me by Rebecca Goss
Dutch filmmaker Helmie Stil‘s latest poetry film uses a text by the British poet Rebecca Goss.
This poetry film is about the transition from being a girl to a woman from the perspective of a mother who wants to protect her daughter but at the same time wanting to let her go.
Rebecca Goss’ poem ‘When it feels hot, that rage against me’ won the Sylvia Plath Prize in April 2022. For the Sylvia Plath Literary Festival in October 2022 it has been made into a poetry film by Helmie Stil from poetrycinema and The Poetry Society.
I love poetry films that feel like responses to the particularity of the places where they were shot. I know that wasn’t the case here, that the text preceded the film and was written independently of it, but the fact that it feels as if it could’ve been written ekphrastically is testament to the rightness of Stil’s imagery.
Pattern noster by bobie (Yves Bommenel)
Pattern noster is a video poem about the importance and influence of patterns. Whatever the figure, the infinite is only a sequenced series of textures.
Be sure to click the CC icon if you need the rough-and-ready English translation.
Bobie is a videopoet from Provence with an active online presence and a growing body of interesting work. I’m not sure why it’s taken us this long to feature his work at Moving Poems. He’s had an interesting trajectory as a culture worker, according to the bio on his website:
My apprenticeship began with writing and drawing. In 1994 I started a garage punk band (Mike Hey No More). Then in 2004 I discovered the dialogue between words, sounds and images on stage within the multimedia trio Ana. Since then, I explore works where the verb surveys different media: stage (Printemps des poètes, BPI Pompidou, Capc Bordeaux, Jimmachine’s tour in Japan, …), devices (Chevaux 2 Vent, Viral…) and exhibitions (Couper-coller, Frgmts collective). In recent years I have mainly devoted myself to collages and video poetry.
Or as he put it on Vimeo,
I write without being a writer. I make collages, without being a visual artist. I make video poems, without being a director. I imagine and play music too. Anyway, poetry remains my path. From my media experience, I have kept a taste for short and incisive forms.
