~ Videopoems ~
Videopoetry, filmpoetry, cinepoetry, poetry-film… the label doesn’t matter. What matters is that text and images enter into dialogue, creating a new, poetic whole.
Death is IN! by Tuija Välipakka
Mikaela Välipakka directed this marvelous videopoem with cinematography and editing by Arttu Soilumo. The poem by Tuija Välipakka is from her 2014 collection Take Away (Paasilinna Publishing). Tuija and and her daughter Mikaela have co-authored a post at Atticus Review, where they describe the film as “the result of cooperation between two movie enthusiasts and a poet.”
Mikaela Välipakka and Arttu Soilumo wanted to create a poem film that is simultaneously dark and surrealistic, surprising and thought-provoking. The starting point was Mikaela’s vision of an empty movie theatre with a man sitting on the middle of the row. Man’s dreams start to stray around him, first slowly and eventually aggressively, trying to wake him up. The poem itself explores the absurdity and randomness of death.
The post continues with a quote from Mikaela Välipakka about her approach to filmmaking:
I start with a certain feeling and after that, scenes start to form in my head. I write them down and shoot these scenes one by one. I usually don’t make storyboards or any other plans, I go by intuition. On the set I get inspired by my model and model gets inspired by me. This creates something magical that can not be planned. Music is also really important to me. I love listening to classical music such as Mozart, Verdi and Gorécki. I put on headphones, close my eyes and my imagination starts to immediately fly. This is something I have been doing since I was a little girl, creating surrealistic and beautiful scenes in my head that I later implement them into ink drawings and short films.
Click through to read their biographies, and be sure to follow Atticus Review‘s Mixed Media section in your favorite feed reader for a steady stream of great poetry films.
Variations on the Word Sleep by Margaret Atwood
A short film from the teen-aged South African director Nathan Nadler-Nir that tells its own story, contrapuntal to Atwood’s poem in the soundtrack (read by Adrian Galley).
Consider the Space Between Stars by Linda Pastan
https://vimeo.com/138677117
Linda Pastan’s poem, read by Scott Gentle, is featured in this film, Consider the Space, directed by Aaron Kodz and Frida Regaza. This particular upload is from Newintown, but the actual production company was apparently Big Block Live. Henry Zaballos’ cinematography won a 2015 Silver Telly Award. For more credits, see Shoot magazine.
Not surprisingly, considering the directors’ previous clients, this has a bit of the look and sound of a television commercial. But hey, Linda Pastan! The poem was published last year in the Paris Review, and is included in Pastan’s 14th book of poems, Insomnia, due out from Norton in October.
A post in The Inspiration Room quotes Aaron Kodz about the film:
“Consider the space between words on a page” begins the poem by Linda Pastan, and we set out to capture that feeling of the moments that make us. Not the events in our life, but the little spaces in between that develop us into who we are. New York was the perfect backdrop, as it is itself a canvas of 6 million stories. Many of these tales do not make headlines, but even the small, quiet moments in our lives define who we are and what we become. “Consider the Space” explores these little moments in life, and the common threads that bind us all together.”
Dolphins (excerpt) by Inua Ellams
Inua Ellams‘ contribution to Refugee Tales, a project dedicated to “walking and sharing Tales until indefinite immigration detention ends in the UK.” The film was made by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, shot and edited by Shanshan Chen with additional camera work by Amelia Wong and original music by Paul Mottram. I found this via a post in the excellent online magazine Aeon:
‘No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.’
Occasionally, stories of refugees fleeing desperate circumstances in their home countries make the mainstream news cycle – usually following the horrifying discovery of dozens found dead in transit on land or at sea. But much more frequently, the trying and terrifying journeys of migrants to find a safer place to live go all but ignored.
Having escaped the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram, Nigerian-British writer Inua Ellams knows something of the migrant experience, but he says that the nightmarish journeys of refugees is still something he can hardly fathom. Nevertheless, in Inua’s Dolphins, Ellams adds insight and artfulness to the migrant experience by transforming the stories of children who have fled their homelands into poetry, imbuing the horror with a humanity that is compassionate but clear-eyed.
Nadien / Afterwards by Marleen de Crée
you will take your leave of this place
but this place will not take its leave
of you. it is an illness with a voice
that surrounds you. that voice was wet.
A poem and film that seem to speak to the situation of refugees and exiles in Europe and beyond. Flemish poet Marleen de Crée provided the text (from her forthcoming book Druppelpunt) and voiceover, and the English translation in the subtitles is by Willem Groenewegen. Concept, camera, editing and music are the work of Marc Neys A.K.A. Swoon, who notes:
It was the first part of the poem that gave me the idea of showing a person not being able to escape; from her past, from what she did, from her encounters. From who she is…
We have this papier-mâché bear in our house (it will also be used in another video, later this year) that was the perfect prop for this video.
Katrijn Clemer played the woman (and was also responsible for making the bear, years ago).
Once everything was shot (all in one afternoon), the editing process was easy. It all came together perfectly.I’m very happy with how this one worked out and I consider it one of my best for this year…
This is Swoon’s sixth film made with a text by Marleen de Crée.
Instrucciones para cantar / Instructions for Singing by Julio Cortázar
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A comically literal, manic interpretation of Cortázar’s text, directed by Adrián Suárez with the Akira Cine production company. Other credits include Juan Carlos Gonzáles, director of photography; Real Music, sound design; and Alexander L’Estrange, music. The English translation appears to have been adapted from this one.
Map of the Underground by Ifor ap Glyn
A terrific animated film from 2005 directed by Hywel Griffith of Griffilms Animation Studio, featuring a poem by Ifor ap Glyn, two-time winner of the National Eisteddfod of Wales. Music and dub are by Meilyr Tomos.
Fifth Avenue by Hasan Mujtaba
Oh my beloved country
When I sing of your separation
I return to myself
But all I hear in return,
Is the language of guns…
A poetry film in the style I like to think of as illustrated spoken word—a style that works particularly well for poems that blend the personal and the political. Sofian Khan of Capital K Pictures directed. Here’s the Vimeo description:
An exiled Pakistani poet finds fresh inspiration in his new home, while reflecting on the tragedy of partition that has left a legacy of war and strife in his beloved land. Fragments of a globalized world seem to coalesce here on fifth avenue, strung together in the poet’s mind.
Directed by Sofian Khan / Cinenmatography – Bob Blankemeier / Original Score – Joshua Green / Sound + Mix – Evan Manners / Animation – Will Clark / Makeup – Jackie Push / Starring – Arik Hartman
The English translation is by Annie Ali Khan. I couldn’t find a website for Hasan Mujtaba, but he’s active on Twitter.
Inside and Out by Anna-May Laugher
A new film by Helen Dewbery using a text by the French-British poet Anna-May Laugher, with music by Kevin MacLeod. According to the credits, it was “created as part of a elephantsfootprint workshop led by Helen Dewbery and Chaucer Cameron with thanks to Hilda Sheehan for inviting us to be part of Poetry Swindon”. For more on Elephant’s Footprint, see their website and Vimeo page.
Snö / Snow by Marie Silkeberg
…a collection of snow figures to mourn the dead
the dead man of snow
the mourners of snow
the ground covered
while the refugee camps
are filled with freezing people
the tents bulge under the snow…
A new, multilingual videopoetry collaboration by Marie Silkeberg and Ghayath Almadhoun. Here are the credits from the YouTube description:
film by: Marie Silkeberg & Ghayath Almadhoun
poem: Snö by Marie Silkeberg, 2014
english translation: Frank Perry
arabic translation: Ghayath Almadhoun
camera: Marie Silkeberg & Ghayath Almadhoun & shared films from the internet
music: Hanna Hartman
The Spotted Leaves of Some Marsh Orchids by Steve Griffiths
If you haven’t been keeping up with the Late Love Poems film project (30 films featuring the poetry of Steve Griffiths in 30 weeks), you’re in for a particular treat this week, with the debut of Film 7. Griffiths comments:
This is an important poem for me, about an extraordinary moment of realisation when you fully see the individuality of the person you love. I read it at our wedding for that reason. What’s been done to it in this film is something else. It was the first poem I worked on really hard after unhappy trials in front of the camera, and I rediscovered levels, nuances, turns of rhythm and pace that I’d forgotten since I wrote it. Then there’s Eamon Bourke’s film work, and the first substantial, astonishingly sensitive, musical input from Ivan “Ogmios” Owen, of battlerap fame on YouTube, who I’ve known since he was two. The way it falls together feels special.
