~ Video Library ~
لاعب النرد / The Dice Player by Mahmoud Darwish
Egyptian student-filmmaker Nissmah Rosdhy’s animation of a section of a Mahmoud Darwish poem of the same title is the winner of the 2014 ZEBRA Prize for the Best Poetry Film. (Though the jury members announced from the stage that they regarded all four of the films they picked for prizes this year as equal winners, the prize sponsored by Literaturwerkstatt Berlin itself was still treated as the first among equals. And having watched all 29 competition films, I wouldn’t argue with that.)
Erica Goss and I met with Nissmah Roshdy the day after the awards ceremony and recorded a twenty-minute interview with her — go watch. The important thing to mention here is that the live recitation with music by the band Le Trio Joubran sparked the film; it’s much more than just a soundtrack. Combine that with a killer animation of Arabic typography and rotoscoped dance moves by the animator herself, and you’ve got an innovative, probably ground-breaking work. Congrats to Roshdy and a tip of the hat to the jury for their inspired selections. (Look for more of those here in the coming days, interspersed with other films from the festival.)
“A real Arabic aesthetic”: Nissmah Roshdy on the making of “The Dice Player”
Egyptian animator and media designer Nissmah Roshdy talks about her film The Dice Player, an animation of a section of a Mahmoud Darwish poem of the same title. American poet Erica Goss, author of the Third Form column on video poetry at Connotation Press, interviewed Roshdy in a Berlin coffee shop the day after the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, where The Dice Player won top honors.
Our conversation continued for more than an hour after the interview, but 20 minutes is about the limit to what I can upload at my slow connection speed. (I apologize for the sound not being perfectly in sync; I’m still learning how to use new editing software.)
Der Längste Kuss / The Longest Kiss by Gerhard Rühm
One thing that poetry-film can really do well is make experimental or avant-garde poems seem more approachable, even entertaining, to a mainstream audience. That’s what Austrian filmmaker Hubert Sielecki and poet Gerhard Rühm have managed to do here, employing what can only be called a choral arrangement of readers—all versions of the same person—in 4/4 meter to defamiliarize and poeticize a found text taken from a newspaper report. For someone with no German like me, the result is a pure sound poem. I was in the audience last Saturday for the main screening of this film at ZEBRA, where it was one of the 29 competition films, and the response was very warm indeed. And that’s not a surprise: this is an immensely entertaining film. Had there been a true “people’s choice” award voted on by everyone who attended the competition screenings, I suspect this would’ve won. (I see that the American animator Cheryl Gross, who also had a film in the competition, has also singled this out as one of her favorites.)
An English translation appears at the beginning of the video, but it’s also included in the YouTube description, so let me just paste it in here:
THE LONGEST KISS
The longest kiss in the world continued for 30 hours, 59 minutes and 27 seconds.
Clara and Hannes who kissed each other for the first time on November 21, 1986 are determined to break this world record on Valentine`s Day, February 4.
The world record attempt will be organised by the Association of Pharmacists.
The pharmacists want to promote superior oral hygiene.
They refer to the fact that during a normal kiss 40 000 parasites are transmitted, besides nine milligrams of water, some fat, proteins, salt and also 250 species of bacteria.
The Association of Pharmacists chose Clara and Hannes because at the age of respectively 38 and 41 years they would be experienced.
During the world record attempt they are neither allowed to lie down nor sit and may not visit the toilet.
Take Me to the City by Lucy English
A film by Helen Dewbery, whose film and video poetry website with poet Chaucer Cameron is the latest addition to the Moving Poems links page: Elephant’s Footprint. Check it out. Dewbury’s bio there suggests why she might’ve been drawn to the imagery of the poem:
I grew up near Kingston Upon Thames and spent time living and working in London where I photographed urban and suburban landscapes and became fascinated by the juxtaposition of the green spaces in London’s Royal Parks, the dark muddy grey-brown waters of the Thames and the rolling chalk downs, flower rich grasslands, acid heaths and ancient woodlands of the Surrey hills.
I then moved to Pembrokeshire where I lived for 17 years spending time travelling through the Pembrokeshire countryside. It was these surroundings that inspired me to engage with the art of photography, drawn by the beautiful wild dramatic landscape with gorse strewn hedgerows, Campion covered coast paths and the moody moor land of the Preseli Mountains. These separate but interrelated landscapes played a significant role in my creative process.
The poet, Lucy English, is one of the co-founders of the Liberated Words festival. Visit her own website at lucyenglish.com. The reading is by Hebe Reilly. Megan Palmer is the actress.
15th February by Peter Reading
This 1995 poetry film classic won the main prize at the very first ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival in 2002, as well as an Arts Council of England Animate Award and 1995 ICA Dick Award as “the most provocative, innovative and subversive short film of the year.” Director Tim Webb uploaded this version to Vimeo himself, and the description there is exhaustive. Click through for the full credits. Here’s a snippet:
15th February mixes live action and animation to describe a symbolic rejection and its sadistic outcome, as related in the poem by Peter Reading.
Love gone wrong in 294 cuts. From a poem by Peter Reading, symbolism and sadism meet live action and stop motion in this tale of rhythmic rejection and its aftermath. The 15th February is from Reading’s book Diplopic. In explaining the title, Reading wrote, ‘Diplopic means pertaining to double vision. Every subject is treated from two sides. The funny and the ghastly are symbiotic.’ The 15th February is from one side.
Technical informationThe film mixes 16mm live action, stop-frame and drawn animation.
The late Peter Reading’s poetry was described by The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry as “strongly anti-romantic, disenchanted and usually satirical.”
I said yes by Luisa A. Igloria
https://vimeo.com/107386171
Nic S.’s video remix of a poem by Luisa A. Igloria at The Poetry Storehouse. The text was a particular favorite of mine, so I was happy to see it made into a video. The music is by David Mackey.
Foreclosure by Tara Skurtu
Another Moving Poems original. The poem is from The Poetry Storehouse, and originally appeared in B O D Y. I included Nic S.’s reading from the Storehouse in the soundtrack, mixed with a piece by an Austrian-based electronic composer who uses the handle strange day.
The dollhouse footage is mine. The rest comes from the free stock-footage site Beachfront B-Roll, whose proprietor continues to impress me with the non-generic, idiosyncratic quality of his clips. They also happen to look way more professional than mine, which is no wonder since I have crappy equipment and no training. I hope the footage I’ve chosen is oblique enough to avoid a feeling of redundancy.
Tara Skurtu is a poet and a lecturer in Creative Writing at Boston University. Visit her website at taraskurtu.com. She also has a YouTube channel with some videos of her readings.
Harvest Moon by Erica Goss
Part IX of the 12 Moons videopoetry collaboration between Erica Goss (words), Marc Neys/Swoon (concept and directing), Kathy McTavish (music) and Nic S. (voice). As usual, it debuted online at Atticus Review.
Neys described his editing process in a blog post:
I went back to the outstanding collection of IICADOM (‘International Institute for the Conservation, Archiving and Distribution of Other People’s Memories’) to look for the right footage. And I found some…
Kathy provided me with an alienating soundtrack, with Nic’s reading embedded, long enough to work with two parts in the visual storyline again.
Part one; a colourful look into the (safe &) settled world of an elderly couple in California. The outro is a black & white loop of two sisters walking down the stairs into their future. I like the contrast of these two lines and I love the way they react with the soundtrack.
