~ festivals and other screening events ~
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.
Call for films: Italy and Ireland
Some fresh calls for films this week … first up La Poesie che si vede, an international competition for poetry films based in Ancona, Italy, with the winner awarded €500.
The organisers say:
It is the product of the collaboration between two important festivals: La Punta della Lingua International Poetry Festival and Corto Dorico Film Festival. The first edition of La Poesia che si vede was held in July 2021. Its third edition will take place in June 2023.
The International Competition for Poetry Films is dedicated to poetry short films produced from all over the world. From kinetic text to sound text, from visual text to cine-poetry, up to the filmed performance, poetry film for La Poesia che si vede is total poetry, without discrimination of genre or format.
Submissions on FilmFreeway by 22 May 2023: https://filmfreeway.com/LaPoesiaCheSiVede
Next is the 11 Ó Bhéal Poetry Film Competition, an international competition based in Cork, Ireland.
Up to 30 shortlisted films will be announced during October 2023 and screened at the 11th Winter Warmer poetry festival (26th-28th Nov 2023) at Nano Nagle Place in Cork city, as well as online.
Submissions on FilmFreeway by 31st August, or direct via the instructions on their website https://www.obheal.ie/blog/competition-poetry-film/
Call for films: Drumshanbo Written Word Weekend
Drumshanbo Written Word Weekend is looking for poetry films. Drumshanbo in County Leitrim, Ireland, hosts an annual literary festival bringing together some of Ireland’s finest writers and poets to celebrate the written word. Part of this festival is an annual Poetry Film Competition open to filmmakers and poets from everywhere. The shortlisted films are screened as part of the festivals opening ceremony, and is curated by Colm Scully.
The event offers a first prize of €400
Apply via Filmfreeway at the following link (€5 per submission) https://filmfreeway.com/DrumshanboWrittenWordPoetryFilmCompetition
or apply for free direct by sending a high resolution download link to writtenwordpoemfilm@gmail.com by Saturday 1st July with the following information on an attached Word document.
- Film Name
- Director
- Poem Name
- Poet
- Length of Film
- Country of Origin
- When completed
- Short Bios
- Contact Details
Films should be no longer than 6 minutes, and have been made since Jan 2021. Maximum two films per competitor. All languages welcome but films not in English or Irish require English subtitles or captions. Responsibility for copyright and third party authorisations lies with the creator. Please do not submit films that were previously entered.
Call for films: Festival Cinemistica – Spain
Festival Cinemistica describes its philosophy as:
… dedicated to transcendental cinema, at its several meanings, including philosophic, psychological, scientific, anthropological, spiritual and poetic cinema. Because transcendence in the man and the world, might be eventually ineffable and, on this, cinematographic art has certain advantages, and a huge responsibility.
The 2023 festival has several categories: Cinemistic, in which poetry film would be included, and indeed, ‘all cinematographic possibilities are welcome’; 2023 Mirrors of Love – for which the overarching theme to respond to is Refuge; and a category for films for children.
The Cinemistica Festival has been running for 9 years, and takes place in the beautiful Spanish city of Grenada in November. Entries are open on FilmFreeway until 15th July 2023.
Cadence Video Poetry Festival 2023 – Seattle and online
The 6th Annual Cadence Video Poetry Festival will take place as a hybrid event with screenings in Seattle, and online. There are multiple events in the programme and you can choose between single event tickets or festival passes. The in-person events will be between 27-30 April, while the online programmes will be available for a week longer until 7th May.
There are five intriguing sounding programmes in the festival, including The Edge of Here, The Great Entanglement, and the fantastic title of A Tune to Contain All Your Revolt, as well as a satellite in-person film programme at the Frye Art Museum.
There are also three, live, collaborative workshops with a mixture of in-person, hybrid, and online events.
See the Northwest Film Forum website for more details and a full programme.
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
REELpoetry 2023: Ecopoetry Films & Subjectivity
Ecopoetry Films & Subjectivity is the title of a group discussion to be given by Ian Gibbins (Australia), Mary McDonald (Canada) and Sarah Tremlett (UK), as part of this year’s REELpoetry, a festival for videopoetry in Houston, USA.
These highly esteemed artists and thinkers will be discussing approaches to making poetry films in relation to the theme of ecopoetry and subjectivity. The full discussion will be streamed at REELpoetry on Sunday 26 February at 6:30-7:15pm (Houston time). The full festival program and more information is here.
The trailer:
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.
Haibun films still needed for our film festival!
One month ago, we invited submissions
for a screening of haibun poetry films at the biennial Haiku North America conference, to be held in Cincinnati, Ohio from June 28-July 2, 2023. Moving Poems is an official co-sponsor, and we’ll be the ones selecting the films. Winning films will be screened at the conference and published at Moving Poems.
We required filmmakers to use one of our provided texts, among other quite specific guidelines on FilmFreeway… which have been completely ignored by hundreds of filmmakers from around the world, much to my chagrin. I may have something to say about FilmFreeway’s appalling spam submissions problem later, but today I’d like to emphasize the bright side: So far we’ve gotten two strong submissions that follow the guidelines, and I’m grateful to both filmmakers. We just need a few more. Check out these haibun (password: haibun) and tell me there aren’t a ton of great potential films here! The deadline is March 15.
Call for work: Art Visual & Poetry, 14-17 November 2023, Vienna
A call for work is now open for this biennial Austrian festival, with live screenings in Vienna in November. The main poetry film competition is for German-speaking countries, Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Supporting this are two supporting awards: the Poetry Performance Film award for international shorts of up to 7 minutes of performance films from poetry slam, visual arts, dance and drama; and the Special Award which is for films based on the festival poem La Luna by Manfred Chobot.
More information about all the competitions is on the website: https://www.poetryfilm-vienna.com/en/opencall-2023
New online series ‘Poetry Film in Conversation’ debuts February 9
Poetry Film Live and Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival are holding an online series of events, ‘Poetry Film in Conversation’. The events kick off on February 9th 19.30 (GMT) with Animation, Motion Graphics and Text on Screen. Diek Grobler, Suzie Hanna and Jane Glennie will each give a presentation (Suzie’s will be pre-recorded) followed by a panel discussion chaired by Lucy English, and finishing up with an audience Q&A.
Diek Grobler is an artist working in various media and disciplines. Since 2010 his creative and theoretical focus has been on animated poetry-film. His films have been widely exhibited on international animation festivals, and his work has been shortlisted twice for the Weimar Poetry-film Award. He was awarded a PhD in Art from the University of South Africa and is an independent researcher on Poetry-film and experimental forms of animation.
Jane Glennie is a filmmaker, typographer, and founder of Peculiarity Press. Her films have screened worldwide, featured on www.shondaland.com, and received awards at competitions in the UK, Germany, and USA. Her poetry film with Rosie Garland, funded by Arts Council England, has now been published as a ‘book of the film with extras’.
Suzie Hanna is Emerita Professor of Animation at Norwich University of the Arts. She was Chair of NAHEMI, the National Association for Higher Education in the Moving Image from 2016 – 2019, and remains an honorary member of the executive. As an animator who collaborates with other academics and artists, her research interests include animation, poetry, puppetry and sound design. She has made numerous short films all of which have been selected for international festival screenings, TV broadcast or exhibited in curated shows. She also creates improvised animated projections for live performances of music and poetry. Recent commissions include short films for BBC Ideas and Cambridge University Creative Encounters Programme. She contributes to journals, books and conferences, and has led several innovative projects including online international student collaborations and digital exhibitions of art and poetry on what was Europe’s largest public HiDef screen. She works as a production consultant and as an international academic examiner, and she was a member of the AHRC Peer Review College from 2009-2014.
To book tickets please go to Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/poetry-film-in-conversation-animation-motion-graphics-and-text-on-screen-tickets-516766210647
Festival: Reel Poetry 2023
The Reel Poetry Festival programme for 2023 is now online.
The organisers say:
REELpoetry/HoustonTX 2023 is a four day international, curated, hybrid poetry film/video festival taking place online and in person FEBRUARY 23-26, 2023. In addition to juried open submissions, we also feature programs by invited guest curators & presenters, ASL poetry and performances, craft triads, networking, panels and more.
Moving Poems and Haiku North America welcome submissions for haibun film festival
Film submissions open January 1 for a screening of haibun poetry films at the biennial Haiku North America conference, to be held in Cincinnati, Ohio from June 28-July 2, 2023. Moving Poems is an official co-sponsor, and we’ll be the ones selecting the films. Winning films will be screened at the conference and published at Moving Poems.
What is haibun?
“Haibun” means “haiku prose” in Japanese. It’s a hybrid genre combining one or more haiku with lyrical prose, and it’s this juxtaposition, we believe, that makes it such a good fit with videopoetry or poetry film, where the artful juxtaposition of disparate parts is so central. Michael Dylan Welch, who organized the first English-language haibun contest in 1996, notes that “The key to the art of haibun is the graceful pairing of poem and prose, where the poem links to the prose yet shifts away from it, in much the same way that verses relate to each other in a renku [linked verse sequence] by linking and leaping.” (Click through to his website for examples and links.)
There aren’t a whole lot of good examples of haibun videos to point to yet, but that’s one of the things we’re hoping to change with this contest.
Rules and guidelines
Films/videos must use one of the ten provided haibun, which were selected by HNA from a separate, earlier contest that had 229 submissions. Visit this page https://movingpoems.com/2023-haibun-film-festival-texts-for-filmmakers/ and input the password: haibun. These are all unpublished poems whose authors have given permission for this contest only.*
Please include the haibun author’s name in the description to help us screen out spam submissions. The author’s name should also be included in on-screen credits.
Filmmakers may opt to use some rather than all of the text, if the author is OK with it. (We are happy to put them in touch with each other. Use the Contact form.) But the result should still look and sound like a haibun.
It’s entirely up to the filmmakers how to present the prose and poetry—as text on screen or voiceover, or some combination of the two. We also don’t want to discourage more experimental approaches, such as attempting to translate some of the prose portion of a haibun into wordless film poetry or narrative filmmaking, though that does of course come with a higher risk of rejection.
Films may be as long as seven minutes, but we encourage run times of 3-5 minutes.
Films must be submitted through FilmFreeway.
Submissions open January 1, 2023 and close March 15.
Selections will be announced on May 1.
*Password protection helps preserve the unpublished status of the texts, so that those not chosen for films may be submitted for publication elsewhere.
