News about any and all events in which poetry films/videos are prominently featured, whether or not they include an open competition. Please let us know about any we might miss. And don’t forget to check out our page of links to poetry film festivals. All festivals, events and calls for work are mentioned by MovingPoems 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.
Drumshanbo County Leitrim, Ireland, hosts an annual literary festival bringing together some of Ireland’s finest writers and poets to celebrate the written word. As part of this we host an annual Poetry Film competition open to filmmakers and poets from everywhere. Each year we have an evening where we screen the shortlisted films as part of the festival’s opening ceremony. Send your entries and come join us in this beautiful Lakelands town in August.
The films must have been made more recently than January 2023, and should not exceed ten minutes. June 30 is the deadline. Visit Film Freeway for all the rules and terms.
The upcoming International Video Poetry Festival in Athens looks to be a massive affair, with 97 films and 33 live performances from 43 countries, all free (with a suggested donation), on Friday 11 and Saturday 12 April at the Empros theater in Athens.
International Video Poetry Festival celebrates twelve years of creative collaboration with more than 2000 artists from 85 countries in general, a world of poetic visions for the benefit of humanity. Poetry, cinema, music and spoken word come together to communicate the inspiration, dreams, ideas and hopes of all of us. This year the festival hosts significant artists such as Capétte, Amanda Shea, J.Chambers and Mad Kate, among other top international performers of the spoken word scene. […]
The Institute for Experimental Arts founded the International Video Poetry Festival in 2011, introducing the art of Video Poetry to the Athenian audience for the first time. Inspired by the digital platform Moving Poems (USA), the festival has evolved into a dynamic international field of collaboration between artists from America, Asia, Europe, and Africa.
Through its Show Room Video Poetry Zone and Live Performance Zone, IVPF creates an open public space for all forms of contemporary visual poetry, spoken word performances, concerts, video art shows, workshops, and lectures.
The 12th International Video Poetry Festival will take place in Athens at Fri. 11 and Sat. 12 April 2025. The festival attempts to create an open public space for the creative expression of all tendencies and streams of contemporary visual poetry. The IVPF has been around since 2011. It is one of the largest international platforms for video poetry. Every year, it offers poets, film directors, video artists and festival makers from all over the world a platform for creative exchange, brainstorming and meeting with a broad audience. Poetry readings, live performances, concerts, retrospectives, exhibitions, performances, workshops and lectures showcase the diversity of the genres of video poetry and spoken-word music.
The International Video Poetry Festival happens in two different zones. The first day is the Show Room Video Poetry, a unique cinema hall zone that will include video poems, visual poems, short film poems and cinematic poetry and performances by artists from all over the world (America, Asia, Europe, Africa). The second day is the Live Performance Zone with multimedia poetry readings, concerts of experimental music, workshops and spoken word lives.
Poets, filmmakers, video and digital artists, media and performance artists are called to submit creative works to the 12th Annual International Video Poetry Festival in Athens, Greece. The festival celebrates and will screen a large scope of video projects developed through the medium of poetry. The International Video Poetry Festival will also host a series of panels, guest speakers, workshops, and public dialogues regarding film and video poetry. In addition to the screenings, programmers also curate a video art exhibition.
There are no restrictions regarding when the film was produced or if the film has premiered regionally or internationally. There are no restrictions on subject matter, theme, topic, or the language of origin. The International Video Poetry Festival will accept submissions of poetry films, filmpoems, digital-poetry, poetry video, Cin(E)-Poetry, spoken word films, videopoema, visual poetry, choreopoems, poetrinca, media poetry, and all films and videos that are driven visually by text or voice.
Live performances, video mapping, installation proposals, and grand-scale video art presentations that contain strong aspects of poetry are encouraged. The IVPF also calls for experimental film and video work that explores poetry or literature whether it be oral, written, visual, or symbolic. This includes non-narrative work and the avant-garde.
The IVPF strongly considers artwork that examines and challenges traditional visual communication methods while continuing to function as a tool for exploring poetry. The International Video Poetry Festival will consider documentaries that focus on poets, poems, poetry, poetic technique, literary movements, and historical events within these realms. The documentaries must have English or Greek subtitles.
The IVPF also calls for video work that explores poetry and literature whether it be oral, written, visual, or symbolic. This includes the film essay or cinematic essay, non-narrative work, and the avant-guard. We will also strongly consider work that challenges traditional and current visual communication methods while continuing to function as a mode for exploring narrative and personal expression.
Organizer and promoter of the International Video Poetry Festival are the Institute for Experimental Arts in co-operation with Void Network.
Awards & Prizes
Every year the committee of the Institute for Experimental Arts the 10 most outstanding video poems of the annual festival. Τhe committee is composed of the official member of the nonprofit cultural society Institute for Experimental Arts.
Rules & Terms
Deadline: All submissions must be submitted, emailed, or postmarked no later than 15 February, 2025.
One project title per submission form is allowed. All languages are allowed (including English or Greek subtitles)
Artwork based on poems and not longer than 20 minutes can be submitted. All languages are allowed.
From the submissions, a program committee makes the artwork selection for the festival program. A jury made up of representatives from the fields of poetry, film and media will select the video poems. The 12th International Video Poetry Festival will not offer notes or feedback on any submitted films or projects. No revisions will be accepted once an entry has been received. Once payment has been processed, IVPF will not provide a refund. All decisions made by the committee will be final, and no refund of the submission fee will be provided.
ALL ENTRIES must be subtitled in English or in Greek. In the event that the submitted project is accepted for inclusion within the 12th International Video Poetry Festival the submitter agrees to provide each of the following rights to The 12th International Video Poetry Festival without reservations, conditions, or qualifications: (a) the right to use footage, stills, and information from or relating to the project for promotional purposes (b) the right to issue and authorize publicity concerning the filmmakers and the project and to use all associated names, likenesses and biographical information.
The IVPF will announce the 2024 program selection in April 2025. The 12th International Video Poetry Festival will take place on April 11-12.
The International Video Poetry Festival is a project of the Institute for Experimental Arts in cooperation with Void Network in Athens / Greece. If you have any questions : theinstitutecontact(at)gmail.com
Process Submission Fee
Deadline for all submissions is February 15, 2025. The submission fee is 8 euros per video or media project.
If you want to propose us a performance, lecture or any other idea, you are very welcome to send them to the following email: videopoetryfestival [@] gmail.com
Somehow we missed the opening-date announcement back in July, but poetry filmmakers still have until February 25 to submit to the 2025 festival. Here’s the call-out:
Through the Weimar Poetry Film Award the Literary Society of Thuringia and the Weimar Animation Club are looking for innovative poetry films.
The aim of the award is to improve the exchange between authors and filmmakers in Thuringia and Central Germany, to sharpen the perception of poetry in multimedia contexts, and to create more awareness for the experimental short film genre »poetry film«.
The competition is part of the Poetryfilmtage (International Poetry Film Festival of Thuringia).
Filmmakers from any nation and of any age are welcome to participate with up to three short films of up to 10:00 mins, which explore the relation between film and written poetry in an innovative, straightforward way. Films that are produced before 2022 will not be considered.
The Weimar Poetry Film Award stands for an independent and competent awarding process. The jury is international and consists of three jurors with expertise in the fields of poetry, film production or criticism, and festival organization. The competition films are nominated by a program commission. During the festival, the jury selects the winners of the Jury Prizes in the categories »Best Animation« and »Best Real Film«. Both awards are endowed with € 1,200. A €250 audience prize will also be awarded by the cinema audience.
The competition »Weimar Poetry Film Award« is financed by the State Chancellery of Thuringia, the Sparkasse Mittelthüringen, and the City of Weimar.
Once again, this August, we gathered in Drumshanbo to screen our 18 shortlisted films. It was a miserable Friday evening and we could hear the driving rain cascade off the roof and hammer down the drain pipes of The Old Mayflower Ballroom, a thousand miles away from the baking sunshine, open doors, and coffee stand days of the two previous years. Still, the people came and Willie, along with his faithful dog, worked his technical magic, setting up screen and sound so we could cozy down to two hours of entertainment and prize giving.
This year we were chuffed to have 175 entries from 21 countries worldwide, with a huge sweep of talent present from established film makers and new names. As I said at my intro I could have easily chosen a totally different 18 and they would have been just as good. However in the spirit of eclecticism and inclusiveness I chose films from a myriad of styles and practices. The result, I think, was a selection where everyone in the crowd found something to enjoy.
Still image from Bakers Son by Patrick Gamble
We had humour and slapstick comedy from Australia’s Patrick Gamble with Bakers Son. We had black humour and collage animation from the US with Michael Mitchell’s Resume (an account of Dorothy Parkers famous poem about suicide). It was very gratifying to be able to show Finn Harvor’s excellent elegy of his late father, which contained humour and pathos in equal measure. People were very taken with the rhythms and musicality of Kenneth Karthik’s Punjabi Market from Canada. The subtle message about sexuality and how different communities and cultures adapt to a changing world really struck home. Barry Hollow’s Cap-cut created-struggles of life-piece was touching, and it was wonderful to hear the Scots of his childhood. I must say it reminded me very much of Burns with his ‘many a slip twixt cup and lip’. Eileen and her crew provided half time refreshments, wine and nibbles, then we returned to more great films.
Still from Resume by Michael Mitchell
At the end we introduced the poets/filmmakers who had travelled. Mary Guckian, from just over the road (the first lady of Leitrim Poetry) spoke of how Eamon De Burca adapted her poem Night Time, a tale of childhood memories. His two daughters starred and chose their own dresses. It was a realistic interpretation, but the subtle film work and touching reminiscences made it very satisfying.
Tara Luger and Julia Galley from Vienna and Freiburg traveled specially for the event. They made their film as part of an Erasmus module assignment while studying in Belgium. The narration was in Japanese and the narrative had us thinking all sorts of things until the final twist explained everything. Houseplants has to be watched to be appreciated. They regaled us later in the pub with stories of their Irish connections.
Csilla Toldy, a well known poetry film maker and lecturer, came south and explained to us the story of Jewish Lithuanian poetess Matilda Olkinaite (My Dear Idealist). Csilla’s use of refrain, overlay, historical images and aged modern footage created a haunting space in which to relay the poignant poetry of the victim of Nazism.
Anne MacDonald spoke emotionally of her own mother, who was the subject of the short animated piece, Crows’ Books. Animated by her niece (Kate Hanlon—away in Australia) it was very much a family affair.
Ceara Carney, actor and tour guide, came from Dublin. There were fewer environmentally driven films submitted this year, I hope that is not a symptom of climate change fatigue. Ceara’s film Residents of 49 represented the cause well, her spoken-word mastery energising with rhyme the beautifully filmed (on super 8) goings on of nature in her back garden.
There were other great films, such as Olaf Boqwist’s Pained Flowers/Printed Leaves from Germany, Jane Glennie and James Kenward’s Dark, Mersolis Shone’s Repeat from Austria, Andre Chiaradi’s My Son, Diek Grobler’s – I haven’t told my garden yet, Brent Walbilligs – Ad Hominem from Canada, a film of post imperial introspection.
But there had to be winners, and Eileen O’Toole, our Chairperson, awarded, in absentia, a lovely set of handmade Drumshanbo pottery to Marcella O’Connor from Kerry, for Best Irish Poetry Film. Her film, Night Drags, touched me. It was an interpretation of a poem by Aogán O’Rathaille (the Gaelic Bard of the 17th Century). I am forever intrigued by old Ireland and this piece, filmed so beautifully around the west coast, capturing rutting stags in Killarney and keening heard of seals on a Blasket beach, seemed to reach deep into the past to that time of desolation and dispossession. Also it was nice to have an Irish language poem in the set.
Still from Blink Once by Jim Haverkamp
But our winner, this year for the first time from outside of Ireland, was Jim Haverkamp’s Blink Once. A film he made when paired with the fine American poet, Karin Gottshall as part of the Filmetry Project in Michigan. Jim gave us his acceptance speech via video, humouring us with his jibes about Jameson Whiskey while explaining how he made the film by combining the discovery of an old book about metal detecting with Karin’s poem of childhood memory. Many people asked me why I picked it. Put simply, it worked for me. It brought the magic out. The magic of the poem, the magic of the story. It’s all the little things that make it work. The old-style, low-definition camera work, the stark colours (blue, brown, white). The pacing and dramatic intent in the narrator’s voice. The lack of connection between the visual and the words, and yet paradoxically, the perfect symmetry between them. And of course the perfect words; words about gender, sexuality maybe, or just about dreaming and hope, longing. Whatever it was, it was beautiful.
REELpoetry/HoustonTX 2025 is open for submissions. The organizers say that “By popular demand, we’re extending the submission time to six months.” The festival will take place “online March 31- April 4; in person APRIL 5-6; with online workshops April 7-11.” They also note some other changes:
NEW! What could be better than videopoetry to engage coming generations of tech savvy youth. We’re delighted to support poets and filmmakers 18 and under at the festival with a new FREE “Young Creatives” program. If you’re a parent or a teacher, please encourage your kids to submit to this free program. See Rules & Terms for details specific to this program.
NEW IN 2025! We’re thinking about categories differently, and curious to see how one category where the poet and filmmaker are the same person and another where the poet and filmmaker are different plays out. Five notable international curators and presenters who have participated in our past festivals will be judging the submissions. They can’t wait to see your work!
8th Annual Cadence Video Poetry Festival, Still Image: “Adhan” (2023) by Kamyar Mohsenin
Now in its eighth year, Cadence Video Poetry Festival is open for submissions from July 1st 2024 through January 15th 2025. The hybrid festival, which features screenings, workshops and discussions on poetry film, will take place in person in Seattle from Apr 25–27 & online Apr 25 – May 4. Selected video poems receive an artist’s payment.
According to Rana San, Co-Director/Co-Curator of the festival, “Participation in Cadence is open to work that is new or old, short or epic, premiere or seasoned traveler. If it combines text and moving image, we want to see it!”
The festival’s description is worth highlighting:
“Video poetry is language as light. As an art form, video poetry is lucid and liminal—on the threshold of the literary and the moving image. It articulates the poetic image visually, rather than metaphorically—it shifts words from page to screen, from ink to light. A video poem makes meaning that would not exist if text was without image, image without text.”
Cadence also puts on a Virtual Poetry Book Fair during each festival, the most recent of which is still available online.
Cadence Submission Poster (2025)
Additionally, artists can also apply for the Cadence Artist-in-Residence program, which “provides resources and tools for the development of a new video poem to screen at the festival.” Launched in 2019 and open to Seattle-area residents, the program accepts applications from individual artists or collaborative teams. Those selected are granted access to the Northwest Film Forum’s film equipment and editing lab. The deadline for residency applications is December 15, 2024.
An online archive of selected award-winning videopoems from the festival is available on their website for those interested. However, screening the films requires ticket purchase from Northwest Film Forum’s Eventive virtual cinema. Some filmmakers recently selected for Cadence have made their work available on other platforms, such as “Only” (2023) a film by Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş based on a Rebecca Foust poem, featured previously on Moving Poems.
The annual festival is organized by Chelsea Werner-Jatzke and Rana San and hosted at the independent film and arts nonprofit, Northwest Film Forum, founded in Seattle in 1995. Cadence has become a fixture on the video poetry festival circuit so send in your work!
A new online review of the Cadence Video Poetry Festival takes a deep dive into poetry films that incorporate dancing for SeattleDances, “an advocacy organization dedicated to supporting Seattle-area dance performance through in-depth journalism and free resources to dance artists and audiences.” Author Kari Tai took advantage of the festival’s hybrid format to engage with the films at home—an experience I’ve always likened to solitary reading, since the viewer can pause and/or re-watch as often as she likes. For example:
Each time I watch Antipodes, I glean something more of the yin and yang of relationships the poem describes. The scenes toggle between black and white and color underscoring the complementary interconnectedness the poem expresses. The choreography amplifies this tension as dancers pace facing each other across a field to the line The ebony magnetism of existence binds poles. Throughout the video, the spoken words rise and fall with the crescendo of the music and crashing of the surf as the dancers feet tattoo the earth–a demonstration of how choreography and poetry use repetition, theme and variation that stimulates empathetic waves of emotion in the viewer. The pace of the video editing between scenes acts like poetic punctuation or choreographic choices for stillness amid frenetic movement.
Another film prompts this observation:
The festival literature remarks that throughout history poets have been persecuted for not writing the party line and it strikes me that dance also has often been outlawed as a subversive form of expression. When I think about how video is instantly shareable across the world via social media and how, like dance, it offers a form of communication that transcends spoken language, it is understandable how video has become a powerful tool of modern revolt. Exiles combines all three—video, dance, and poetry—a triple threat, an amplified way to shout out to the world.
a still from Exiles (Exils), directed by Josef Khallouf
Why does dance work so well in videopoetry? Tai has some ideas:
I think one thing that is key to illuminating my empathetic response to watching Only is a principle I learned through my training as a Dance for Parkinson’s instructor. Scientists have discovered that watching someone dance pleasurably activates the brain’s movement areas. In the classes I teach, the participants feel a fuller movement experience just by watching the teacher even if they don’t express it on the outside.
Perhaps that is why when we watch dance, even about topics we have not personally experienced, we can feel aligned with the “otherness” dancers can express. This happened for me watching Fairies, a video poem about growing up queer on a farm in the Netherlands.
The film elements in 2024 includes a screening of The Book of Conrad followed by a Q&A with CAConrad, and a Best Of ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival. Over the whole event there are a total of three exhibitions, 12 events and more than 60 participating Berlin poets, musicians and artists.
An evening of film, poetry and music in New Zealand, inspired by Titirangi and its rainforest surrounds on 18th June 2024.
The programme at this live event includes live poetry readings with musicians and a dancer as well as films. The organisers say:
Ron Riddell will read selections from his recent poetry books, with translations in Spanish by Saray Torres de Riddell. He will be accompanied on Raeul Pierard on cello and Stuart Lithgow on oboe.
Gus Simonovic will present a series of his works in an improvised dialogue with the musicians and a contemporary dancer. In his own words: “For a poet, any language is just one big playground. Poetry exists somewhere in the illusive space between words and music. Trying to fit visible and invisible, shapes and figures, radiances and feelings into words is essentially an impossible task and a thrilling challenge.”
Martin Sercombe will present cine collaborations with Ron Riddell and Gus Simonovic, alongside short films inspired by the poetry of e.e. cummings.
The Museum of English Rural Life in Reading is hosting a poetry-film screening and discussion on June 12 that should be of particular interest to Moving Poems readers:
Join us for a presentation of short films created by poet Toby Martinez de las Rivas, filmmaker Jane Glennie, and sound artist Neda Milenova Mirova.
Together, they question bucolic depictions of rural life, and explore notions of the uncanny, the intangible, and the obscure in relation to landscape, agriculture, and rural social practice. The films have been developed from initial work by Toby when he was writer-in-residence at The MERL, working with images from the Eric Guy photographic archive.
For many users of the internet, The MERL is a fabled place, so I am dead chuffed to be able to claim some association with it, if only second-hand. The event is live-only, as is perhaps fitting for a museum celebrating real life at its most tangible and pungent, and dare I say most absolute. For those who are able to attend, it’ll be from 6:00-7:30 p.m. on 12 June. Here’s the link to book free tickets.
Incidentally, this is not The MERL’s first go-round with poetry film. Remember I, Sheep?
