~ contests ~
We strive to link to as many poetry film/video contests and calls for entries as we can. (See also the festivals category.) Please let us know about any we might miss.
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: Given Words
Poetry filmmaker Charles Olsen is inviting international poetry filmmakers to help mark the 10th anniversary of a project he’s spearheaded called Given Words. As he explains in the CFW,
Given Words is a poetry competition run by me—artist, writer and poetry filmmaker Charles Olsen—for Aotearoa New Zealand’s National Poetry Day in August. Each year I present five words and poets (New Zealand citizens and residents, both adults and children) write poems including all five words. I have also been a judge of the Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival (2023) and the ekphrastic poetry film competition Frame to Frames: Your Eyes Follow (2022).
In the last three editions, the five words have been presented in ‘word videos’ made by students in Honduras, Spain, and Aotearoa New Zealand.
Here’s an example of a given words video from López de Arenas Secondary School, Marchena, Spain, used for the 2023 competition:
For the tenth edition of Given Words I would like to invite poetry filmmakers from around the word to collaborate by contributing very short—from 5- up to 20-second—’word films’, from which I will choose five to inspire the poets of the 10th edition of Given Words. My reason for asking established poetry filmmakers is I would like to use this platform to both demonstrate the possibilities of the audiovisual medium, and hopefully inspire experimentation, as well as young future poet-filmmakers.
In a way it is breaking down poetry film into its most basic element: how to convey a single word through moving image and sound. In selecting the five word films I will consider the poetic nature and originality of each piece, alongside the final combination of the five words.
What will you get out of this?
There are no prizes or laurels or festival screenings. If chosen, your word film will help to inspire around 250 poems by adults and children across Aotearoa New Zealand next National Poetry Day in August 2025. It is an opportunity to be part of this innovative project, and may also get you questioning the relationship between text, sound and image in your own work. You should also have fun!
I have run Given Words for nine years with prizes donated by New Zealand publishers, and a minimal seed fund towards judging fees. No fee is asked of participants, and many schools across Aotearoa New Zealand invite their students to take part. We will promote the results and the winner’s profiles on our social networks during the National Poetry Day celebrations.
Guidelines
- Make a film that presents one word in an original poetic way. The word must be present visually, or in audio, or both.
- Each film should be less than 20 seconds long.
- You can choose any word. We usually choose a mix of nouns, verbs and adjectives. Words in languages other than English will need to be accompanied by the English translation.
- You can submit as many word films as you like, although for the five words we will only choose one per filmmaker.
- You may submit clips of your previous work if it fits the guidelines.
- Please do not include credits or logos.
- Submission is free.
- By submitting you acknowledge that the work is yours, and that you have obtained permission(s) where required.
- Email your word film, preferably as .MOV or .MP4, to nzgivenwords@gmail.com by 28 February 2025.
- Include your full name, a brief bio (up to 80 words), links to your social media and website, and an English translation of the word where necessary.
- By submitting your work you allow us to crop and edit the work, and present the work online. We will include the credit of your work.
- Any questions can be addressed to Charles at nzgivenwords@gmail.com.
Click through to watch more videos from the project and check out the winning poems that these videos have inspired. It’s interesting to see videopoetry being used to spark further poems. That’s kind of as it should be, I think. Let’s end with the 2024 Given Words video:
Calls for work: latest round-up
I’ll illustrate this round-up with a trailer excerpt from a personal favourite that I saw this week from the online Juried Selections at REELPoetry Festival in Houston. I Dream my Dream by Monique van Kerkhof and Bo Oudendijk.
Dreaming about showing your work? From Australia to Mexico and other points in between, there are film festivals that are awaiting poetry films. Recent posts here on Moving Poems have included Drumshanbo, Resonans, and Maldito, and these are still open, as well as Midwest which was listed back in January.
In Australia there is a new poetry film festival to be held in conjunction with the Poets on the Mountain Festival and they are looking for Australian poetry films and Australian Bush Poetry films. Deadline 30 June.
La Poesia Che Si Vede is an international competition for poetry films based in Ancona, Italy. The organisers say that “poetry film for La Poesia che si vede is total poetry, without discrimination of genre or format”. Deadline 27 May.
Fotogenia in Mexico City has been running for 6 years. It has a varied programme that includes categories such as avant-garde feature films and video art, with a specific film poetry category. They do have a number of specific rules though – do check carefully. These include mandatory Spanish subtitles if your film is to be shown in the in-person screening, and that films cannot be shown online at any other public website. Deadline 31 July.
Open call: Maldito Festival de Videopoesía 2024
Spain’s MALDITO FESTIVAL DE VIDEOPOESÍA has just announced open calls for its International Videopoetry Contest (short films) — guidelines here [PDF] — and its International Poetic Film Showcase (medium- to full-length films) — guidelines here. Maldito is
an international videopoetry contest that has been held in Albacete (Spain) since 2017.
MALDITO FESTIVAL launch this contest with the purpose to show two disciplines that, either individually or collectively, are much more isolated and forgotten as we would like. According to our experience, these disciplines are considered marginal and minor in the extent of the great European capitals, moreover, in the humble towns within regional borders where its dissemination is nonexistent.
MALDITO seeks to vindicate video poetry as an art that connects people, transmits feelings and stimulates different ways to see the world. It is also a tiny contribution of enormous people to empower visual art, stopping it from being marginal and damned*.
(* The Spanish word for damned is MALDITO).The festival is organized by non-profit Association Cultural Maldito; formed by a small team of professionals from the film industry, poetry and culture in general.
MALDITO Crew, as lovers of poetry, image and the expressive possibilities of its symbiosis, we pick up the baton and propose to continue the line of action, encouraging their approach to the public, either with the festival events or the educational activities that we carry out.
The festival will be in November 11-17. The deadline is July 10.
Drumshanbo 2023: A brief report
The second Drumshanbo Written Word Poetry Film Competition was a great success with nearly a hundred entries from sixteen countries. This was up 15% on last year. We shortlisted down to 16 films, after a rigorous review process. This included five Irish films and films from the UK, Germany, US, Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands. Films were of a very high production quality, varying in theme from the wr in Ukraine to women’s rights in Iran, mental health, and familial tenderness.
An audience of fifty or more arrived at the Mayflower Ballroom Drumshanbo on Friday 26th August, despite the cool weather, to watch and appreciate the magical intertwining of language and light. The feedback from the audience was fantastic, especially when I interviewed two film makers on stage. The up-and-coming poet Liz Houchin, recently in residency at the Scottish Poetry Library, told us how, when she had a little grant money left over she decided to ask poet and filmmaker Luke Morgan to create something out of one of her favourite poems, “If my mother had a retrospective at the V&A” (see below). Have fun, she told them, and by God they did, creating a virtual exhibition space on screen where her mother’s knitting and sewing enterprises were playfully laid out for all to see. A surreal experience, where the ordinary is catapulted onto the halls of one of the great museums, in so doing exploding the whole idea of the ordinary. Made, Liz said, for all the quiet needle workers in the homes of Ireland.
We also talked to the very talented Grace Wells from County Clare. Grace has been making poetry films for many years out of her own poems. Mostly with an ecological slant, advocating for nature and the environment. Grass was a beautifully filmed eco-poetryfilm where the narrator addresses that most important of natures flora as it meanders through its seasons. All in all a great night. Roll on next year. You can view the shortlisted films on YouTube.
Call for entries: REELpoetry/HoustonTX 2024
The Public Poetry organization in Houston, Texas has announced the opening of submissions to REELpoetry/HoustonTX 2024 on FilmFreeway:
REELpoetry/HoustonTX 2024 is an international, curated, hybrid poetry film festival taking place online APRIL 1-4 and in person APRIL 5-7, 2024. We explore the intersection of poetry and film or video with artists working solo or collaboratively, on a cell phone or in a studio, with new or remixed or previously created work. Everyone worldwide is invited to submit their best work, created in the past or the present, up to a maximum of 6 minutes
In addition to open submissions, the festival includes a series of 40 minute themed curated programs, premieres, commissioned collaborations, deaf slam, live readings, craft workshops, poet+filmmaker talks, deaf+hearing panels and networking cafés. Screenings stream on-demand three more weeks.
REEL’s on the radar of curators and presenters and festival directors from Australia to Canada, from Ireland to Mexico, and you can connect with them at parties and premieres in person or at REELcafes in real-time online.
We’ll be screening juried open submissions in two unthemed categories — one being poetry films or videos under 4 minutes, and the second 4 to 6 minutes in length.
NEW! NEW! This year there’s a themed submission category for work inspired by the concept of “Juxtaposing Reality.” Think about elements, events, ideas, people, places that belong together–or don’t—now, in the past, and/or in the future.
We’re excited to see your work, and it’ll be great to see you online or in person at REEL 2024! REELpoetry/HoustonTX is a project of Public Poetry (publicpoetry.net).
Awards & Prizes
Prizes in cash will be awarded in four categories: poetry film/ videos under 4 minutes; poetry film/ video 4 to 6 minutes, responses to our theme and Audience Choice.
Official Selection REELpoetry laurels look great added to any poetry video or film!
Rules & Terms
1. All Entries must be 6 minutes or less, including credits. No exceptions.
2. You can submit in any language, but an English translation must be included.
3. We accept both new and pre-existing work or a repurposed combination of both.
4. For screenings to be accessible to the deaf, you must show the poem either on-screen or captioned. Poems that are spoken must include written text.
5. Filmmakers may use footage in the public domain from sites like Creative Commons (creativecommons.org)
Call for Work: Button Poetry Video Contest
The spoken-word channel/platform Button Poetry has just announced their 2023 poetry video contest.
We are thrilled to host our eighth annual open-submission video contest!
There are so many ways to record and present poetry, and we want to continue giving people around the world the chance to step up on the digital stage and share their work.
We are looking for brave work that crosses borders or effaces them completely, work that enters into larger social conversations, work that lives in the world, work with a strong, unique voice and palpable energy.
Here are the guidelines. The deadline is August 31. Good luck!
Call for work: ekphrastic video poems
Part of Festival Fotogenia in Mexico in November/December 2023 is Frame to Frames: Your Eyes Follow II. This is an ekphrastic video poem screening and prize competition.
Organisers are looking for films under 10 minutes, but preferably around 5 minutes, that are based on paintings or other works of art. Submitted films must include subtitles – in Spanish for films in English, or in English for films in Spanish or other languages.
There is also the option of working with the painting chosen for the festival: Huapango Torero by leading contemporary Mexican artist Ana Segovia (courtesy the artist and Karen Huber Gallery).
For more information and how to enter see: https://liberatedwords.com/2023/05/16/ana-segovia-painting-inspiration-for-frame-to-frames-your-eyes-follow-fotogenia-link-for-entry-forms/ Where you can also read more about the Festival painting and why Liberated Words’ Sarah Tremlett chose it for the competition.
Call for entries: Filmetry 23
Filmetry, an online festival of poetry and film that began in 2019 and picked up steam during the pandemic, is inviting filmmakers to make new work from a set selection of poems, just as Moving Poems did with our own upcoming haibun film festival. If our experience is any guide, they may need extra help in getting the word out, so do share this widely:
FILMETRY: a Festival of Poetry and Film is an annual collaborative art-making endeavor that pairs filmmakers with poets to create exciting new pieces of work. Filmmakers are invited to synthesize and adapt poetic work into film with only one rule: a commitment to including the text of the poem, in full, in the finished piece. The hope is that through this collaboration, both artistic partners can witness not just an adaptation of a written piece into audiovisual media, but the transformation of the original piece into something wholly new.
PLEASE READ THE RULES BELOW BEFORE SUBMITTING. The festival invites filmmakers to create new work from specific poems available on our website. Work created from poetry not on this list will be disqualified.
In its 5th year, FILMETRY will invite curated work adapted from poetry engaged with cinema. Visit copy paste this link: filmetry.org/2023-work (password: filmetry2023) to view selected work for adaptation.
They have a very tasty selection of contemporary poems to adapt from the likes of Martha Collins, Sheryl St. Germain, Denise Duhamel, and Gary LaFemina. Click through to FilmFreeway for the complete guidelines.
Films for Haiku North America 2023 Haibun Film Festival
We’re pleased to announce that that the following nine films have been selected for screening. We extend our gratitude to all the directors who made brand-new work just for us, with astonishment at the variety in styles and approaches, even with some haibun proving to be hugely popular choices to work with! We’re also grateful to the writers who submitted haibun through HNA last fall, including those whose work was not ultimately chosen. Haiku writers have a unique, centuries-long tradition of using friendly competitions to push the art forward. It’s been awesome to feel as if we’re a part of that, in a small way.
Anyone who’d like to attend the festival on June 29 in Cincinnati can register for the conference here. The videos will of course remain embargoed until that point. Then we’ll ask the filmmakers to make them public so we can share them at MovingPoems.com, one post per film, and at that point we’ll also encourage both the filmmakers and the haibun authors to share the videos freely, online and off, and spread the good word about haibun video.
Please join us in congratulating the directors of the selected films.
—Jane Glennie, James Brush and Dave Bonta, judges
Table for One (haibun by Carol Ann Palomba)
Director Matt Mullins
United States
2:20
The Gone Missing: A Haibun by Joseph Aversano
Director Marilyn McCabe
United States
0:56
Haibun – The Gone Missing by Joseph Aversano
Director En D
Australia
1:00
Unremembered (haibun by Marjorie Buettner)
Director Pat van Boeckel
Netherlands
2:09
The Gone Missing (Joseph Aversano)
Director Janet Lees
United Kingdom
4:03
Hypnic Jerk (haibun by Alan Peat)
Directors Pamela Falkenberg, Jack Cochran
United States
2:56
The Longest Journey by Bob Lucky
Director Pete Johnston
United States
2:30
The Gone Missing by Joseph Aversano
Director Pete Johnston
United States
1:08
The Gone Missing (Joseph Aversano)
Director Beate Gördes
Germany
2:22
Vancouver’s City Poems contest: a model for local poetry-film competitions?
Fiona Tinwei Lam is the current City of Vancouver (Canada) Poet Laureate. She has had a very busy role co-ordinating the City Poems poetry project which aims to foster public engagement with local history and culture through poetry. I am very pleased to say that this project has a very significant poetry film component.
You can watch selections from the competitions while the project is open for the audience awards until 26th May 2023.
You can read more about the project in a short article Fiona wrote about the competition. I hope the project proves a good template for encouraging similar future projects in Canada and elsewhere in the world.
Call for work: Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival
New Zealand poetry filmmaker Charles Olsen just wrote to let us know about this fabulous-sounding new festival, scheduled for November 2-3, 2023 in Wellington. Here’s the press release:
Submissions are now open for the Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival 2023
The Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival is an event entirely devoted to the celebration and showcase of poetry film in New Zealand. Poetry film or video poetry is a fast-growing art form that combines poetry, moving images, sound and music. We would like to invite film-makers and poets of any age and backgrounds to participate in the first edition of the Festival which will take place in November 2023 in Wellington. In particular, we encourage the submission of innovative and eclectic takes on poetry film as a distinct media form.
The Festival will feature a poetry film competition, workshops, seminars, poetry readings and retrospectives and it will offer the opportunity to showcase the diversity of poetry film produced both in Aotearoa New Zealand and overseas. The 2023 Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival is organised in collaboration with Victoria University of Wellington.
Submissions open: 1 February 2023
Submission deadline: 15 August 2023
Event: 2-3 November 2023
Website: https://www.aotearoapff.com/
FilmFreeway Page: https://filmfreeway.com/AotearoaPoetryFilmFestival-1
For more info please contact: aotearoapff@gmail.com
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.
