~ calls for work ~
All festivals, events and calls for work are mentioned by Moving Poems with our best efforts and in good faith. However, do check all details yourself as we cannot guarantee accuracy, and make your own judgements because we cannot verify the things that we share. Events may fail for a variety of genuine reasons, or may be a scam to elicit fees.
Call for work: new Oregon-based poetry film festival Cinema Poetica
Poetry film festivals are pretty thin on the ground in North America right now, so I was excited to hear about a new one set for October 28 in Ashland, Oregon as part of the Ashland Literary Arts Festival and sponsored by a newish journal called The Timberline Review. Like most film festivals, Cinema Poetica is set up as a contest, and submissions are via FilmFreeway, but the guidelines make it clear that they’re open to decidedly DIY, low-budget, poet-produced videos. It’s not entirely clear whether more professionally made poetry films are welcome, but they don’t appear to be excluded by the rules and terms per se. Instead, I think the “challenge” is intended to encourage adventurous poets with crap equipment to give it a go. But it might be worth querying the editors before submitting more polished work.
There are several other unique features of this contest, mostly reflecting the typical mindset of an American print literary magazine (e.g. the assumption that the poem is essentially textual, preceding the video, and the requirement that it be previously unpublished to be considered for publication) so I’ll take the liberty of reproducing their guidelines in full:
Cinema Poetica
The Timberline Review is excited to host Cinema Poetica, a film festival celebrating the cinema of poetry, an emerging short-film genre.
Make a one- to three-minute film featuring a poem you’ve written, or perhaps a poem you wish you’d written, as the dramatic narrative.
It’s poetry. Budget is limited. Technology is what you can shoot on your phone. There aren’t going to be any car chases, stunt doubles, FX, studio overdubs, 35 mm stock, or spaceships.
The Cinema Poetica Challenge
Strip it down to the poem. Strive to make your film not “polished,” but ever more raw, primitive, visceral, surprising, intuitive.
Start with the poem and let the poem be your guide. Shoot in real time. Shoot in real locations. Shoot in color. Incorporate location sound into your film. If you’re going to use music, make the music on camera. Use natural lighting. Use a handheld camera. Forget about special effects and optical filters.
Keep it low-tech and keep it real. Focus on the content of the poem.
For very basic access to editing tools, here’s a good – and free – editing app designed specifically for mobile devices — Adobe Premiere Clip.
Rules and Terms
Film must include a poem narrative and not just include the poem but be grounded in it. In other words, dramatize your poem.
All film submissions should be made through Film Freeway. Ready to submit?
Regular submission period runs August 1st through September 30th, 2017.
Maximum running time is 3 minutes.
Poems can be in any language, but if not in English, you must provide English subtitles.
No filmed readings, please.
If the underlying poem is not the submitter’s own original work, by submitting your film you acknowledge and warrant that you have obtained any and all necessary permissions from the author of the work, which must include the right to record and perform the poem you’ve used in your film.
Judging Criteria
All films will be evaluated by an independent group of filmmakers and poets. Films judged to best exemplify the Cinema Poetica challenge will be screened at the festival, receive additional recognition, and be considered for the Grand Prize* and Audience Favorite.
Prizes
Grand Prize winner receives a $250 cash prize and possible publication in The Timberline Review.*
Audience favorite receives a hand-drawn broadside of the poem.
Top ten finalists receive special mention and promotion on The Timberline Review website.
*To be considered for publication, poem must be previously unpublished in the English language.
The Festival
Films will be screened throughout the day, October 28, 2017, in the Hannon Library, on the Southern Oregon University campus in Ashland, Oregon, before an adoring public of indie publishers, authors, filmmakers, editors, and artists celebrating the independent spirit of film, literary, and visual arts. There is no admission fee. All are welcome to attend.
The Grand Prize winner, if present, may be invited to join a conversation about poetry and film with our judges and editors.
And Saturday evening at 6:00, it’s a party! Stay tuned for all the details.
The Gallery
Browse some examples of filmed poetry.
Questions
Get more information about the Ashland Literary Arts Festival, or contact editors@timberlinereview.com if you have any other questions.
The Fine Print
Cinema Poetica is a film contest, open to all, sponsored by The Timberline Review, a literary journal published by Willamette Writers, a 501(c)3 organization, based in Portland, Oregon.
Timberline Review editorial staff and members of the Willamette Writers Board of Directors and their immediate family members are not eligible for the Grand Prize.
All films remain the property of the submitter. The Timberline Review and Cinema Poetica retain the right to publicly display any film submitted to the Cinema Poetica film festival, for non-commercial purposes. The Timberline Review retains the right to publish, at its sole discretion, any underlying poem submitted to Cinema Poetica.
Special Thanks
Kim Stafford, Brian Padian, Cascadia Publishers, Mercuria Press, and our partners, Willamette Writers, Ashland Literary Arts Festival, and Film Freeway.
Call for submissions: Filmpoem Festival 2017 at Depot, Lewes
Filmpoem, the artists’ moving image project founded by British artist Alastair Cook in 2010, is at long last sponsoring another poetry-film festival and competition, this time partnering with Depot in Lewes, East Sussex and the UK’s Poetry Society. Submissions are open through September 8th, and the festival will be held on Saturday, October 28th.
Note that the rules are a bit stricter than for most poetry-film festivals: submission is by physical artifact (USB stick or DVD) only, and explicit permission, rather than simply the blanket permission granted by a Creative Commons licence, must be obtained for all copyrighted material such as music used in the film. UPDATE: Digital submissions and CC licences are now permitted. See the complete guidelines on the Filmpoem website.
While you’re there, be sure to read the essay on the About page, which appears to have been recently augmented with new material, for a better understanding of what Alastair means by filmpoetry.
Open call for poetry films: Festival Silêncio 2017
1. INTRODUCTION
Festival Silêncio is the celebration of word. Word as a creative unit and the vehicle of both thought and artistic creation is the engine behind this project. Festival Silêncio will take place in 2017 between the 28th of September and October 1st at Cais do Sodré, Lisbon.
“This is not a movie. It’s a poem.” is a poetry film showcase organised within the Festival Silêncio that includes a national and an international competition. The films in competition will be the manifestation of audiovisual poetical language which will be using cinematographic narrative to state itself as a message.
2. DATE AND PLACE
Between the 28th of September and October 1st, in Lisbon.
3. ADMISSION CONDITIONS
- Poetry films with the maximum duration of 10 minutes will be admitted for selection.
- There are no restrictions of genre, theme or approach.
- The films may be based on well widely recognized poetry, of Portuguese or universal origin, or be based on original poems.
- Films with spoken or written text, not in Portuguese language in the original version, should be subtitled either in Portuguese or English.
- Each participant can enter an unlimited number of films.
- There will be no admission of films already shown on commercial circuits.
- There is no age limit.
4. ENROLLMENT
- The enrollment of films is free of charge;
- Entries will cease on May the 31st; (Deadline was extended to June 20th!)
- To enroll a film the following items must be sent:
a. Enrollment form, properly filled.
b. 3 stills of the film with a minimum resolution of 4MP.
c. Other materials considered relevant, as, for example, the film poster.
The admission process must be entirely sent to poetryfilm@ctlisbon.com
5. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS FOR SELECTED FILMS
Copy of the film (format MP4/H264 in HD 1080p or 720p, Quicktime/H264 or ProRes/H264 in HD 1080p or 720p) spoken or subtitled in Portuguese or English.
6. JURY/SELECTION PROCESS
The selection jury will be composed of elements chosen by the organization and will have the task to select the works that will be presented in Festival Silêncio.
6.1. The film selection takes three categories into account:
6.1.1. Best National Poetry Film
6.1.2. Best International Poetry Film
6.1.3. Audience’s choice
7. COPYRIGHTS
The intellectual property and the copyrights of the films submitted to the competition will remain with the authors. When signing the admission form the participant declares being the author of the presented films and being the rightful owner of relevant copyright. The participant takes full responsibility on any controversy that might arise concerning the originality of the work and/or the property of the above mentioned rights. For all legal effects, the participants take full responsibility for the films they enroll. The Festival expressly disavows any responsibility, and will not be held responsible for any unauthorized inclusion of any content or materials within or relating to the submitted Film that are or may be the basis for any Third Party Claim.
8. FINAL DISPOSITIONS
When enrolling your film at the Competitive Showcase of Festival Silêncio, the participant agrees that the film can be, totally or partially, reproduced in any other place or event related to Festival Silêncio.
Call for submissions: 5th Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film Competition
The Cork, Ireland-based Ó Bhéal reading series have just announced on Facebook that
Submissions are now open for the 5th Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film Competition, in association with the IndieCork Film Festival AND we are thrilled to announce that esteemed Cork filmmaker Shaun O Connor will take part as one of this year’s judges (the other being a poet, TBC v soon!). Follow the link for submission guidelines & to view previous winners’ poetry-films.
The deadline for submissions is August 31, and the screening will be during the IndieCork festival (October 8-15). Past winners have hailed from Australia, the U.S., the Netherlands and Portugal. Check it out.
Doublebunny Press Opens Submissions for Fourth Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival
Submissions have opened for the fourth Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival.
The Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival is a competition meant to highlight poetry and visual art at the intersection of film. The festival, due to take place in Worcester, Massachusetts in October of 2017, focuses on short films that illustrate original poems, all of which are non-performance based (read: no footage of the poems being performed).
As well as a $200 prize for Best Overall Production, Rabbit Heart will be awarding $100 prizes in six other categories: Best Animated, Best Music/Sound, Best Smartphone Production, Best Under 1 Minute, Best Valentine, and the Shoots! youth prize. The matinee, and then the gala awards ceremony and viewing party will be at Nick’s Bar in Worcester, MA on October 21st.
Doublebunny Press is a small independent press that serves the New England area through poetry design, layout, and production of fine books and posters. Doublebunny also supported Omnivore Magazine, a poetry and arts monthly which, during its three-year run, published poetry and articles by over 150 authors, and carried a national subscription base.
Doublebunny has a history of great spoken word events in Worcester. They combined forces with The Worcester Poets’ Asylum to present V Day to the city in 2002 and 2003, and the Individual World Poetry Slam in 2005. In 2014, Doublebunny brought the inaugural Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival to the city, and now for the fourth year’s festival, they plan an even more exciting show for Worcester, inviting the imagination of poets and filmmakers to once again take center stage.
About Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival
Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival is one of very few outlets in the US for poetry on film, and the only festival that asks that the author of the poem participate in the making of the production. In 2014, 2015, and 2016 Rabbit Heart attracted international attention, including not only European submissions, but the honor of a showcase in the CYCLOP festival in Ukraine (2014) and showings in Barcelona, Spain at pro.l.e (2015, 2016).
This year, Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival has once again been recognized with a grant from the Worcester Arts Council, an agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
Submissions are now open for the 2017 Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival, and will remain open through July 1st.
To learn more about this event, including guidelines and galleries of winning films from past years, please go to doublebunnypress.com and click on the menu links to Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival.
Poetry Film Live unveils first issue, opens submissions
Please join me in welcoming and spreading the word about a new online magazine, Poetry Film Live. Unveiled on Friday, its first monthly issue “features poetry films from international poets and filmmakers,” names that should be familiar to most Moving Poems readers: Robert Peake, Marc Neys, Marie Craven, and Judith Dekker. There’s also an interview with Martin Rieser, which adds historical perspective and contributes some insights about poetry film I haven’t seen elsewhere.
The editors are the energetic filmpoem-making team of Chaucer Cameron and Helen Dewbery, with assistant editor Lucia Sellars, a poet and environmental scientist who brings Spanish-language fluency to the table. Poetry Film Live is affiliated with The Interpreter’s House, a 32-year-old UK print literary journal. Here’s how they describe their mission:
Poetry Film Live is a collaboration with The Interpreter’s House poetry journal to show some of the best and most inspiring film and video poetry from the UK and around the world, by both new and established poets and poetry filmmakers.
Poetry film harmonises words, images and sound to create a new poetry experience … it’s more than spoken words, visual images and sound being in the same room together, it’s their ability to talk to one another that creates the magic in poetry film.
The editorial bias is toward poetry films with an emphasis on a convincing poetic experience rather than simply technical excellence. We encourage poet-made films or where the filmmaker has worked closely with the poet. We also encourage work from poets who are new to poetry film.
Submissions are currently open through June 30th. After that, the plan is to have three submissions periods per year, though new issues will appear monthly.
There’s been a real need for this kind of publication. Until now, videopoets and poetryfilm makers who have wanted to submit their work to online publications have mostly had to look for regular literary magazines that make room for videos, and with a few notable exceptions such as Atticus Review and TriQuarterly, that tends to be an afterthought. And all too often literary magazine editors want exclusive publication rights, as if they still don’t fully understand how the internet or the filmmaking world work. By contrast, the Poetry Film Live editors state that “Previously screened and shown work is fine,” and require “A link to your film/video hosted on Vimeo or YouTube” as part of the submission.
They do stipulate that “The author asserts, under his/her own liability, the complete right of use on used materials (images, words, sounds, music) that compose the artwork; the author undertakes complete liability for any breach of copyright laws,” which will exclude some remixes, but should protect them from the situation I sometimes face on Moving Poems of videos disappearing from the site due to DMCA takedown requests to (usually) YouTube from original copyright holders of remixed materials. (Though fair use/fair dealing provisions in U.S. and U.K. copyright law may protect such remixes, YouTube typically errs on the side of caution and takes a “guilty till proven innocent” approach.)
The appearance of Poetry Film Live was a complete surprise, by coincidence on my birthday — which is one day after Moving Poems’ own birthday (she’s eight). So as you can imagine I was really happy to see such a promising new publication joining our not very crowded field, based in a country where — unlike the U.S. — poetry-film actually enjoys some recognition from the poetry establishment as well as in the very active spoken-word scene. Here’s hoping they become a vital and influential player in the poetry-film world.
Call for essays on typography and text as image in poetry film
The Weimar-based, multilingual Poetryfilm Magazine generated as part of the fantastic Poetryfilmkanal website this week issued a new call for submissions. For their third annual issue, they’re looking for essays on Typografie und das Wort im Bild — Typography and Text as Image.
We are looking for essays dealing with the following questions: Is a text in a poetry film purely functional and underlines or explains the meaning of sound and image? What is the difference between a font in a book and a font in the form of a moving image? What kind of different or additional meaning(s) does it create? What is the relation between a text and other elements that appear in a film – or together in a frame? To which extent does this relation turn the text into a protagonist of the film itself? Why does a filmmaker choose for a particular font? What is the relation between sound, voice-over and other visual elements? How is the balance between reading, watching and listening?
As in the past two editions we are interested in a direct connection to the process and practice of filmmaking. We encourage everyone interested to send us their contributions (up to 10.000 signs and without footnotes if possible) until the end of July 2017.
Call for videopoems: SINESTESIA 2017
For the third year in a row, SINESTESIA is mounting an international exhibition of videopoems during Barcelona’s Poetry Week in June. The call is in Spanish (here’s the Google Translate version), but submissions are welcome in English, Spanish or Catalan, or with subtitles in one of those languages. With all the emphasis on conventional filmmaking in so many poetry film festivals, it’s refreshing to see Tom Konyves’ manifesto quoted in a call for work.
Speaking of poetry film festivals generally, I’ve just attempted a long-overdue update of Moving Poems’ list of active festivals. I say “attempted,” because it often isn’t clear if a festival has simply taken a year off or has run its course. If they’ve gone two years or more with no update, I assume it’s time to start talking about them in the past tense. In cases where the website has disappeared, but it’s only been a year since the last festival, I’ll leave the listing up. At any rate, please let me know if there are other festivals or regular screening events I should include.
Call for entries: Weimar Poetry Film Award 2017
Bauhaus University’s 19th annual Backup_festival will include an international poetry film competition for the second year in a row: the Weimar Poetry Film Award. The screening will be on the second day—May 18—of the five-day film festival, and the deadline for submissions is March 15.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Through the new Film Prize, 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 2014 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 Prize« is financed by Kulturstiftung des Freistaats Thüringen, Thüringer Staatskanzlei and the City of Weimar.
Entry deadline: March 15th, 2017.
Form for submissions [pdf] by mail or e-mail.
The »Weimar Poetry Film Prize« 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: May 20th, 2017.
More information about the program: www.backup-festival.de.
Clcik through to Poetryfilmkanal or visit FilmFreeway for the German text of the call.
Call for poetry films: MIX 2017 conference
Bath Spa University’s bucolic Newton Park campus may seem an unlikely venue for an important international conference on writing and technology, but apparently it has “the best specialist digital and studio resources for teaching in the South West [U.K.] – equal to anything found in top commercial organisations and broadcast companies.” The MIX 2017 conference sounds truly interdisciplinary, with “a vibrant mix of academic papers, practitioner presentations, seminars, keynotes, discussions and workshops. Alongside scholars and researchers, artists, creative writers and creative technologists interested in literary forms are welcome to submit proposals.” More to the point for our interests, the organizers have issued a special call for poetry films.
CALL FOR POETRY FILMS
MIX 2017: REVOLUTIONS, REGENERATIONS, REFLECTIONS
BATH SPA UNIVERSITY, NEWTON PARK CAMPUS. 10-12 JULY 2017
The themes for this year’s conference are revolutions, regenerations, reflections. We would like to encourage artists/poets and digital writers to submit poetry films/ film poems/video poetry to be screened during MIX in our Viewing Theatre at Newton Park campus. Poetry films/ film poems/ video poetry is an emerging genre that fuses the use of spoken-word poetry, visual images, and sound to create a stronger representation and interpretation of the meaning being conveyed.
HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR FILMS
Short films should be submitted via email using a direct link to Youtube, Vimeo or an open link to Dropbox or WeTransfer. The email subject line should read ‘Your Name; Poetry Film Submission’ and the body of the email should include a 50-word description of the film.
Maximum 2 submissions per artist, these can be sent in the same email. This email should be sent to mix@bathspa.ac.uk by Wednesday 1st March.
The films will be selected and curated by Lucy English, Reader in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, and Zata Banks (founder of PoetryFilm research art project https://poetryfilm.org)
VIEWING THEATRE TECH SPECS
4K HD projector and 5.1 surround sound
REQUIREMENTS
- Poetry films/ film poems/ video poetry up to 3 minutes.
- Submitted via email using a direct link to Youtube, Vimeo or an open link to Dropbox or WeTransfer.
- Email subject: ‘Your Name; Poetry Film Submission’; and the body of the email should include a 50-word description of the film.
- No more than 2 submissions per artist, these can be sent in the same email.
- Films must relate in some way to the conference’s themes: Revolutions, Regenerations and Reflections.
- English language or with English language subtitles.
- Deadline: Wednesday 1st March 2017.
If you would like to attend the conference please click on the ‘Bookings’ tab.
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.
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.
