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.
Somehow I missed this back on April 1 (I blame my feed reader), but the deadline isn’t until July 30th, so there’s plenty of time to get a submission in:
Liberated Words III poetry film festival
September 2014, Bristol Poetry Festival
Call for poetry films
MEMORY
Following the success of Liberated Words Poetry Film Festival at Bristol Poetry Festival in October 2013 festival organisers poetry filmmaker and writer Sarah Tremlett and performance poet Lucy English welcome poetry films of 3 minutes or less to be screened at Arnolfini, Bristol as part of Bristol Poetry Festival 2014 (15–21 September 2014), with a projected further two screenings at Komedia and The Little Theatre Cinema in Bath in February 2015.
Whilst still in the process of finalising the programme (including a surprise international guest) we are pleased to announce that this year, as well as welcoming our returning US music judges Rich Ferguson and Mark Wilkinson and screening the best films from Argentina and Vancouver from our partners VideoBardo and Visible Verse, some of the events we will be showcasing are: a groundbreaking poetry film from Action on Hearing Loss and the best of young local talent through a schools’ poetry film project with last year’s prize winners Helen Moore and Howard Vause – currently featuring St Gregory’s Catholic College in Bath and St Brendan’s Sixth Form College in Bristol; providing a workshop with the international poetry filmmaker Marc Neys, and supporting commemorative events for the 1914–18 war we will also be hosting a panel discussion on the legacy of Dada and Surrealism in poetry film today.
We will also be requesting submissions for two categories:
1 Open Call on the theme of Memory
2 Commemorating the anniversary of the 1914–1918 war we are also requesting poems in response to a poet of the time – to be announced.
All accepted entries will be screened and archived on Liberated Words website. We will be presenting awards for the best editing for poetic effect and best music throughout the festival.
Submission deadline 30th July 2013. Please send to l.english@bathspa.ac.uk
Entry forms
To enter your films please download and read the Rules and Regulations then download and fill in the Entry Form and Release Form and email your submission to l.english@bathspa.ac.uk
Liberated Words CIC Rules and Regulations 2014 (click to download)
Liberated Words CIC poetry film festival release form 2014 (click to download)
Liberated Words CIC open call memory entry form 2014 (click to download)
Visit the Liberated Words website for more, including examples of films screened at last year’s festival.
A month-long International Festival of Electronic Literature—OLE—will be held in Naples and its environs in October. There is of course some overlap between videopoetry/filmpoetry and electronic literature; here’s how the festival website describes the latter:
Electronic Literature, also known as eLiterature or digital literature, includes a wide genre of works that make use of digital media (from the computer to the Internet to single software) to be created and / or to be used. It is therefore not about traditional works subsequently digitized, but born digital works that generate real new languages and, therefore, new literatures.
The festival is divided into two sections, one “made up of internationally renowned artists from all over the world,” and the other for younger artists. The call for proposals targets the latter group:
Present Call is addressed to young people of any nationality who are under 35 years of age. The theme of the Festival is “Memory of the future: to know ours roots to plan a common future”. The other sub themes are: “conditions for peace, sustainable development, knowledge and cultural diversity,” in parallel with the theme of Universal Forum of Cultures.
The works they’re seeking include:
2. ELECTRONIC POEMS
- videopoetry
- kinetic poetry
- interactive poetry
- 3D poetry
- multimedia poetry
- hypertext poetry
- flash poetry
- generative poetry
- code poetry
The deadline is May 15. Refer to the website for the rather complex submission procedures (which may be more comprehensible in Italian).
Duluth, Minnesota’s Prøve Collective (which counts among its members the cellist/composer and videopoem maker Kathy McTavish, whose work I’ve featured on Moving Poems) recently issued a rather unique call for artists to collaborate on multimedia projects with poet Kathleen Roberts, culminating in a two-week exhibition in August. Here’s the call as it appears on mnartists.org:
Accepting submissions of visual, film, and sound art for With Sirens Blaring. Deadline: July 1
Duluth’s Prøve Collective announces an open call to filmmakers and artists for its upcoming show, “With Sirens Blaring”.
Deadline: 1 July, 2014.
Prøve Gallery, Duluth, Minnesota’s independent and artist run contemporary gallery, is proud to announce “With Sirens Blaring”, opening 8 August, 2014.
Show Description: Poetry is, above all things, an attempt to view the world through language. This summer, Prøve Collective will display a body of work linking poetry to visual, film, and sound art. Pursuant to a grant from the McKnight Foundation, award-winning Duluth poet Kathleen Roberts is creating an assembly of films and artwork by local and regional artists based on her words. These works will be displayed permanently on her website and in Prøve’s August exhibition, “With Sirens Blaring”. Artists in all disciplines are encouraged to inquire.
Mission Statement: Prøve Collective is a cultural organization dedicated to the role of art exhibition as a conduit of powerful ideas and diverse viewpoints. Our mission is to foster a greater appreciation of the contemporary arts, to bridge cultures, to create and expand community, and to provide cultural exchange, networking opportunities, and educational outreach through regular interaction with the contemporary arts. It is the goal of Prøve Collective to present monthly gallery shows, collaborate with like- minded arts organizations, and provide an arts retail environment.
Submission guidelines:
Interested parties may contact Kathleen via e-mail at kathleen@provegallery.com. Please include a brief statement of purpose and Curriculum Vitae. These will be works of collaboration, and we are interested in sharing in your ideas about poetry and its intersection with other art forms.All submission materials must be written in English. Prøve Collective will provide publicity, exhibition invitations, mailings, and an opening reception. All work resulting from this project will be under Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY), which requires that anyone distributing this work or making derivative work must give attribution to the original artists.
Submission does not guarantee that your work will be displayed.
Please e-mail kathleen@provegallery.com if you are interested in participating in this moving poetry project.
Deadlines:
• Submissions are due by 1 July. As this collaboration will take time and communication, it will be necessary for artists to initiate contact well in advance of the deadline for submission.
• The opening reception for “With Sirens Blaring” will be 8 August from 7-11pm.
• The show will run for two weeks and conclude on 23 August.
• Pick up will be August 28-30 from 3-7pm.Please direct any questions to Kathleen Roberts, kathleen@provegallery.com.
PRØVE Gallery 21 North Lake Avenue Duluth, MN 55802 info@provegallery.com www.facebook.com/provecollective www.provegallery.com
A new poetry film festival is slated for Worcester, Massachusetts, USA: the Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival, sponsored by Doublebunny Press. The screening is in September, submissions are open until June 1, and — unusually for a poetry film festival — there’s a $25 submissions fee, and six winners will get cash prizes: “Best Overall Picture will win $200, and there will be $100 prizes in categories for Best Animation, Best Music in a Video, Phone Shot, Under 1 Minute, and Valentine.”
Two other unique features of this contest and festival: they want only what I would call videopoetry or filmpoetry — no footage of the poet herself reading her work, and they’re looking for author-made films, requiring the poet to be “directly involved in the process of making the video.” Also, judging is blind, so the film can’t contain any credits. All in all, this is definitely one of the most unique poetry film festival call-outs I’ve seen. Check it out.
Another poetry film festival is scheduled for November in Vienna, Austria. The Art Visuals & Poetry Festival has been going on for several years now, and its website is a good source for information on various film festivals and poetry film-related activities, especially for those who read German. The 2014 festival includes an international competition using a recording of a poem by Georg Trakl as well as a competition for Austrian filmmakers. The deadline is September 30.
The Austria-specific contest is for what they call a textfilm. In contrast to the Rabbit Heart folks, they cast a pretty wide net:
Whether abstract, classic, animation, narrative or cinematographic : the genre of poetry film is colorful and varied. There are also many definitions. The Scottish photographer and filmmaker Alistair Cook defined the poetry film recently with the following words: “A poetry film is… a single entwined entity, a melting, a cleaving together of words, sound and vision. It is an attempt to take a poem and present it through a medium that will create a new artwork, separate from the original poem.” In contrast to the Anglo-American world, we accept all kinds of literary art works, that meet the predicate literary. It can be abstract sound poem or poetic prose or naughty poetry slam. Therefore we sometimes use the word “textfilm” as a synonym for the word “poetry film”.
Anyway, do read their call for entries.
Don’t forget that the main Moving Poems links page includes, as its last category, a nearly complete list of international poetry film festivals. For recent festival news and call-outs, browse the “festivals and other screening events” topic here at the forum.
Belgian videopoet Marc Neys, A.K.A. Swoon, is behind two features this month at the online magazine Awkword Paper Cut. His monthly column “Swoon’s View” focuses on two films by Irish poet and filmmaker Melissa Diem (also a favorite here at Moving Poems), balancing his critiques with Diem’s own notes about the making of each. It’s always interesting to hear someone who has achieved mastery both as a poet and as a filmmaker describe their creative process. Here, for example, is Diem discussing the second of the two films:
The poem, Appraisal, came about by exploring ideas of alienation and personal identity in relation to others through testing the physical and social world we find ourselves in and by testing the limits within the self. And of course these worlds in turn test us, sometimes relentlessly. It was this aspect of the poem that I wanted to explore in the poetry film. The initial idea came about organically when I was doing a quick frame rate test and Cayley (the little girl in the film) happened to be dancing about the room. We were only half paying attention to each. When I played back the footage I was moved by her expressions, the concentration playing across her face at certain times, her earnestness and innocence as she focused on positioning her small limbs in certain movements. It was that innocence against the great expansiveness of life rushing towards us, with its many tests, that I wanted to capture.
Also this month at Awkword Paper Cut, submissions are open for a unique writing contest: they’re looking for “500 words or less of prose, poetry, or flash fiction to match the video by award winning filmmaker Marc Neys (aka Swoon).”
The submission that best suits the video by Swoon will be selected by a panel of seven judges to be recorded, added to the video and showcased on Awkword Paper Cut including airplay on our Podcast! In addition, the winning submission will also receive membership to The Film Movement’s Film of the Month Club – Offering some of the finest independent filmmaking available! ALSO…Top selection along with runner ups will be featured on the Awkword Paper Cut Podcast!
Here’s the video:
Who wouldn’t want a chance to collaborate on a new videopoem (or videoessay, etc.) with Swoon? Submit by March 31. Details here and complete guidelines here.
London’s Southbank Centre is holding a love-themed poetry film competition with Alastair Cook, Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel and Malgorzata Kitowski as judges.
Shot Through the Heart – Southbank Centre Poetry Film Competition
Friday 14 February – Friday 30 May
Calling all poets and filmmakers! Love is in the air at Southbank Centre and we want you to create poetry films that explore the joy of first love, the pain of lost love, the confusion of displaced love, the purity of platonic love, or any other kind of love.
There are two categories to enter:
Poetry films on the theme of love made for adults
Poetry films on the theme of love made for children (under 12)
Throughout the summer, Southbank Centre’s celebrates the Festival of Love. Our biennial Poetry International festival (17 – 24 July 2014) explores many different themes including the various ways in which love can impact on writers’ lives. Poetry film will be a major part of this year’s Poetry International.
A poetry film can be many different things, as Alastair Cook, Filmmaker and Director of Filmpoem Festival in Dunbar, explains –
‘A poetry film is… a single entwined entity, a melting, a cleaving together of words, sound and vision. It is an attempt to take a poem and present it through a medium that will create a new artwork, separate from the original poem.’
Dates:
Shot Through the Heart Competition opens: Friday 14 February 2014 at 12noon
Shot Through the Heart Competition closes: Friday 30 May 2014 at 6pm
Prizes:
Southbank Centre is very keen that each submission is seen as a collaborative artwork between poet and filmmaker, so this prize is awarded jointly to the winning poet and filmmaker in each category. Poems must be by living poets and follow the copyright guidance and rules here.
Poetry films made for adults:
• Shortlisted films will be shown in Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, on Friday 18 July 2014 and all shortlisted filmmakers will be invited to the screening. The winner and a runner-up will be announced on the night.
• The winning film will receive £500 to be shared between poet and filmmaker as well as a pair of tickets each to Poetry International’s Gala Reading.
• The runner-up poet and filmmaker will receive a pair of tickets each to Poetry International’s Gala Reading.
Poetry films made for children:
• Shortlisted films will be shown in The Clore Ballroom at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre on Saturday 19 July 2014. The winner and runner-up will be announced on the night.
• The winning children’s film will receive £500 to be shared between poet and filmmaker as well as a pair of tickets each to Poetry International’s Gala Reading.
• The winning film will also be shown in Imagine Children’s Festival 2015 headlining a children’s poetry film event – this is one of our busiest festivals, attracting thousands of audience members every year.
• Both winning films will be shown at 2014’s ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival in Berlin.
The Filmpoem Festival, which debuted last August in Dunbar, Scotland, will be moving to Antwerp this year in partnership with the Felix Poetry Festival. The organizer, filmmaker and artist Alastair Cook, has just posted a call for submissions [PDF]. The deadline is May 1st, and the festival will be held on Saturday, June 14th in the FelixPakhuis in Antwerp.
In other Filmpoem-related news, Erica Goss’ “Third Form” column on videopoetry this month takes an in-depth look at Alastair’s work, including some of his best films and quotes from a telephone interview. Check it out.
And finally, as it says on the Filmpoem website, “Filmpoem has been invited to close the upcoming Hidden Door festival on 5th April 2014″ in Edinburgh. Alastair made the following show reel for the event, using a text from the Scottish poet Morgan Downie:
http://vimeo.com/84677290
Do join the Filmpoem group if you’re on Facebook.
The leading videopoetry festival in North America, Visible Verse, takes place in Vancouver every fall. Heather Haley, the organizer, messaged me on Facebook to let me know that they are already open for submissions again. Here’s the call from their new website:
Call for Entries and Official Guidelines:
- VVF seeks videopoems and poetry films with a 12 minute maximum duration.
- Works will be judged by their innovation, cohesion and literary merit. The ideal videopoem is a wedding of word and image, the voice seen as well as heard.
- Please do not send documentaries as they are outside the featured genre.
- Either official language of Canada is acceptable, though if the video is in French, an English-dubbed or-subtitled version is required. Videopoems may originate in any part of the world.
- Please submit by sending the url/link to your videopoem for previewing to VVF Artistic Director Heather Haley at: hshaley@ emspace.com along with a brief bio and contact information. If selected, you will receive notification and further instructions.
- There is no official application form nor entry fee.
2014 Visible Verse Festival will take place in October
Submission deadline: July 1, 2014
Two other international poetry film festivals are also currently open for submissions: the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival in Berlin (deadline: 25 April) and The Body Electric Poetry Film Festival in Fort Collins, Colorado (deadline: 16 February).
If you organize, or simply know about, other poetry film festivals and contests, please contact me when they open for submissions so I can help spread the word.
I’m a little late in sharing this announcement, but the 2014 ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival is open for submissions:
For the seventh time, the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival is calling for entries to find the best poetry film. Entries may be short films made on the basis of poems. The total value of the prizes in the competition is € 13,000. From among the films submitted, a Programme Committee will nominate the films to be entered for the Competition and select the films for the various sections of the festival programme. The winners will be chose by an international jury.
The Festival is also inviting entries of films based on this year’s »Festival poem«, Love in the Age of the EU by Björn Kuhligk. The directors of the three best films will be invited to Berlin to meet the poet and have the opportunity to present and discuss their films. You can find the poem with a sound recording and various translations here.
Closing date for entries for all the competitions is 25 April 2014
See the complete call for entries [PDF].
Motionpoems and public artist Todd Boss present “Arrivals & Departures at St Paul’s Union Depot,” a colossal 3D poetry film installation that will magically transform the facade of one of St Paul’s most impressive landmark buildings.
The plan is to:
- select a handful of original poems by Minnesotans (theme: “Arrivals & Departures”) from a statewide call for poems (see GUIDELINES below),
- commission Minnesota film teams to turn finalist poems into short films to fit digitally mapped 3D templates of the building,
- project the films onto the screen-filled facade of St Paul’s historic Union Depot at 5-minute intervals like trains, with accompanying audio from lawn-area speakers, during the St Paul Art Crawl, October 2-4, 2014.
The artistic vision for this project is to celebrate Union Depot’s renaissance as a rail hub with an act of locally sourced meaning-making that will reclaim the space in the hearts and minds of all who experience it.
They need a lot more backers, though, so please consider making a contribution to the Kickstarter campaign.
It’ll be huge. Five poems. Five films, departing every 5 minutes like trains, looping till late-night during the Saint Paul Art Crawl, when thousands of art-lovers already flock to Lowertown.
I’m a passionate evangelist for poetry, and I believe that our public spaces could be more “poetic.” This project is not about me or my poet friends. It’s about inviting everyone to write a poem, and sharing those poems (in film!) with the community.
This is the last call for Filmpoem Festival 2013 – get them in the post folks! We’ve had some incredible entries so far. Check this.