~ 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.
Poetry Film Festival: in Weimar and online 20th – 31st May
Opening on 20th May is the International Poetry Film Festival of Thuringia held in Weimar, Germany.
The in-person event runs until 22nd May, while online lasts until the end of the month. Tickets available through Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.de/e/international-poetry-film-festival-of-thuringia-tickets-333442003007
For full details of the programme please see their website: https://poetryfilmtage.de/
Call for work: Maldito Festival de Videopoesía 2022
Held in Spain since 2017, the Maldito Video Poetry Festival is open for submissions for 2022. The festival takes place in the city of Albacete (screening date yet to be determined).
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. They explain their festival and their name:
“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.”
Poetry films must be 5 minutes or less, and films in languages other than Spanish must have Spanish subtitles. The deadline for entry is 25 September 2022, full details on submission is available on their website: https://malditofestival.com/registration-video-poetry-contest-medium-full-length-film/
Calls for work: four possibilities for poetry film-makers
Four possibilities for entry … two dedicated festivals, a festival that includes poetry film within a category, and something that doesn’t mention poetry film at all (but could have potential).
In Ireland there is the Ó Bhéal 10th Winter Warmer poetry festival. The festival will happen 25th-27th November 2022 in Cork and will include the 2022 Poetry Film Competition.
Submissions are open from now until 31st August and are free, and open to all for films of up to 10 minutes. Full guidelines on entry are available on their website: https://www.obheal.ie/blog/competition-poetry-film/
Meanwhile Arts + Literature Laboratory are running their third Midwest Video Poetry Fest on 7-8th October 2022 in Wisconsin, USA, and submissions to this event are open until 1st July for films of up to 7 minutes. More about the event and previous festivals are on their website: https://artlitlab.org/programs/literary-arts/midwest-video-poetry-fest
Full details and entry are on FilmFreeway.
MicroMania FilmFest exists for films of up to 5 minutes. This festival is not specifically aimed at poetry film but the freestyle category description includes poetry film as one of the areas of interest and has options for films under 2 minutes and 2-5 minutes. I could also imagine some films from our genre fitting into the experimental category too. The event will be in person and online from 3–24 September 2022. See FilmFreeway for more details and entry
And finally a more left-field possibility: Sensoria 2022. This is a festival of film, music and digital happening in Sheffield, UK from 30 September to 8th October 2022. The organisers say:
“The festival team are on the hunt for exciting new work in the realms of music, film and digital.
We’d also love to hear from potential partners, co-promoters or anyone who wants to make a suggestion – do get in touch.”
If you explore the Sensoria website you will glean that the festival is heavily aimed towards music. But if your poetry film includes music in an exciting way, particularly if it has original music – then I think you may have what the organisers are looking for: “short films with innovative soundtracks or scores”. Read more about the event on their website: https://www.sensoria.org.uk/news/sensoria-2022-call-for-submissions/
I love to see poetry film crossing over into other worlds and while some opportunities may be long shots, the more that poetry filmmakers enter into wide-ranging events, the more we can hope to bring what we do to wider audiences. Selection for events can be less about the definition of a genre and more about the little thing that captures the imagination and excitement of the selector – and who knows which film might just do that …
Call for work: ZEBRA 2022
The ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival is inviting entries for the 2022 International Poetry Film Competition. Entries open on 1st May.
The event is long-running and very big in the world of poetry film. The organisers describe this year’s event:
“The 13th ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival runs from 3rd to 6th of November 2022 in the Kino in der KulturBrauerei and in the Haus für Poesie. It is the largest international platform for poetry film worldwide. Since 2002 it offers poets, film and festival makers from all over the world a platform for creative exchange, brainstorming and meeting with a broad audience. With a competition, film programmes, poetry readings, retrospectives, exhibitions, performances, workshops, colloquia, lectures and a children’s programme, it presents in various sections the diversity of the genre of poetry film.”
For full details about the call out, please see: https://www.haus-fuer-poesie.org/en/zebra-poetry-film-festival/zebra-poetry-film-festival-2022/call-entries/
Or look out for them on FilmFreeway
FESTIVAL POEM
As well as the international competition open to all poetry, the event also has a ‘festival poem’ – this year THE HAIRCUT by Georg Leß. Filmmakers are invited to make an interpretation of this film for the festival. The three best film adaptations’ directors will be invited to Berlin, where they will be able to present their films and speak with the poet.
Travel and accommodation in Berlin for the three selected directors will be paid for by the Festival.
Call for work: La Poesia che si vede Poetry Film Festival
Italian festival La Punta Della Lingua (or in English ‘Tip of the Tongue’) announces their 2022 poetry film competition as part of their ‘total poetry festival’ …
The organisers say:
“La Poesia che si vede is an international competition for poetry films based in Ancona, Italy. 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 second edition will take place in June 2022.
The competition’s mission is the challenge of researching, promoting and supporting new gazes, poetics, visions. From the kinetic text to the sound text, from the visual text to the cin(e)poetry up to the filmed performance, the videopoetry for La Poesia che si vedo is total poetry, without discrimination of genre or format.”
The FilmFreeway page for the competition is: https://filmfreeway.com/LaPoesiaCheSiVede where you will also find further details and rules for entry. Deadline for submissions: 18th of May 2022.
More information about the wider festival is at: https://www.lapuntadellalingua.it/
Cadence 2022 continues: online until 1 May
Cadence Video Poetry Festival 2022 in person was this weekend in Seattle, USA (21–24 April) but there is still time to enjoy the online element of this hybrid festival.
There are five intriguing programs of films available:
As the wind is breathing • It is strange and kinda symbolic • Its flashes are flashes of fire – What is hidden needs to be seen • When I’m not asking for permission
… which showcase between 6 and 13 films each. Tickets are available for the whole online event, but also for individual programs.
More about the whole festival is on the main site: https://nwfilmforum.org/festivals/cadence-video-poetry-festival/
Or if you want to skip straight to the online screenings: https://watch.eventive.org/cadence2022
Call for work: Living With Buildings festival
A festival of films exploring how people interacts with buildings and urban spaces in the public realm. We aim to screen short films/poetry film that investigates how we experience the build environment.
[LIVING WITH BUILDINGS is brought to you by the Disappear Here poetry film project]
We’re looking for work up to 5 mins in length, anything between the poetry-film, experimental, short-documentary strands of film-making. The project is rooted in the UK city of Coventry, famed for its ringroad, modernist architecture and reinvention as a city rising from the ashes and ruins of arial bombing in World War Two – we are happy to consider work from citizens all around the world.
The psychopathology of underpass and overground.
Floating towers holding up the sky.
Living With Buildings.
Finding our way(s) through the subterranean culture and dead roads with no ending.
Exploring internal tensions between regeneration and gentrification.Remaking and remodelling urban spaces as forces of commerce or gentle revolution take hold and fight for ownership.
Where does the citizen fit into these processes; and how do we interpret or express their experiences of the ground shifting beneath their feet.
Find out more about the Disappear Here project – http://www.disappear-here.org
VENUE
LTB SHOWROOMS (above the Litten Tree pub) – COVENTRY – CV1 1EX – 1 Warwick Road
Rules & Terms
Reconnections: free online screening of poetry films at Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival
Pleased to see this:
Date: Saturday 17th April 2021
Price: Free
Time: 12:00 – 1:00pmA screening of poetry films on the theme of Reconnection, curated by Liberated Words. Reconnection to landscape, the body, our history, family and heritage, during and before the pandemic. Artists featured include Kat Lyons, Edalia Day, Rebecca Tantony, Alice Humphreys, Liv Torc, Yvonne Reddick, Helmie Stil, Helen Johnson, Sarah Tremlett, Sarah Wimbush, Isobel Turner, Edson Burton, Michael Jenkins, Pierluigi Muscolino and Francesco Garbo. Followed by a discussion and Q&A with Sarah Tremlett and Lucy English of Liberated Words.
In registering for the event, I found that I had to use a UK postcode — your mileage may vary. Get your free ticket here.
Submissions open through May 31 for Weimar Poetry Film Award 2021
It looks as if I might’ve neglected to post the original call-out for the 6th Weimar Poetry Film Award. It’s here, but I’ll paste it in below as well:
Through the Weimar Poetry Film Award the Literary Society of Thuringia and the Weimar Animation Club are looking for innovative poetry films. 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 2018 will not be considered.
The competition »Weimar Poetry Film Award« is financed by Kulturstiftung des Freistaats Thüringen and the City of Weimar. The competition is part of the »International Poetry Film Festival of Thuringia«.
From all submitted films selected for the festival competition three Jury members will choose the winner of the main awards (Best Animation, 1200 €; Best Video, 1200 €). Moreover, an audience award of 250 € will be awarded.
Dates & Deadlines
- November 1, 2020 – Opening Date
- December 31, 2020 – Earlybird
- May 31, 2021 – Regular Deadline
- July 16, 2021 – Notification Date
- September 25, 2021 – Award Ceremony
Form for submissions [pdf] by e-mail to info [at] poetryfilm.de
Cadence: Video Poetry Festival 2021 debuts online on April 16
Tickets to the fourth annual Cadence: Video Poetry Festival are now available and the festival starts on Friday, April 16 and runs through Sunday, April 25. All tickets are sliding scale and all screenings will be available throughout the 10-day festival.
Cadence: Video Poetry Festival, presented by Northwest Film Forum, programmed in collaboration with Seattle author Chelsea Werner-Jatzke and artist Rana San, is a series of screenings, workshops, and discussions on the genre of video poetry, during National Poetry Month.
Cadence approaches video poetry as a literary genre presented as visual media that makes new meaning from the combination of text and moving image. Featuring screenings, an artist residency, generative workshops for youth and adults, and juried awards, the festival fosters critical and creative growth around the medium of video poetry.
“One thing that really impressed us about the submissions pool,” Chelsea and Rana told me in an email, “was how many of the video poems were made in the last year—it’s so impressive and encouraging to see artists creating amid the complicated tumult of our time.”
Festival Highlights
The Uncanny Intermingling showcase will feature a collaborative video poem by participants in the festival workshop, Animated Poetry with Neely Goniodsky, set to Anastacia-Reneé’s poetry currently featured in the exhibition, Anastacia-Reneé: (Don’t Be Absurd) Alice in Parts through April 25 at the Frye Art Museum.
Natachi Mez, NWFF’s 2020 Cadence Artist-in-Residence, completed her residency virtually in 2021 and the resulting video poem will be featured in (and provides the titular line of) the This Is How I Excavate showcase.
Award winners have been selected by guest judges: Nico Vassilakis (Adaptations/Ekphrasis), Caryn Cline (Collaboration), Catherine Bresner (Video by Poets), and Roland Dahwen (Poetry by Video Artists), and Moss Literary Journal (Northwest Artist Award). Submissions in the Wild Card category are judged by Festival Co-Directors Chelsea Werner-Jatzke and Rana San.
Festival Program
Included in Festival Passes:
- The Republics: feature film
- Foam to Form: video poetry showcase
- Housed But Never Homed: video poetry showcase
- Ink of the Unfamiliar Pen: video poetry showcase
- This Is How I Excavate: video poetry showcase
- Uncanny Intermingling: video poetry showcase
Separate registration:
- Cinema Divina: contemplative practice with Marilyn Freeman
- Haiku You: all-ages film poetry workshop with Echo Park Film Center
Call for entries: 2021 Film and Video Poetry Symposium
The L.A.-based Film and Video Poetry Society’s 4th annual symposium is open for submissions from “Poets, Writers, filmmakers, animators, video and digital artists, media and performance artists.”
The symposium celebrates and will screen a large scope of film and video projects developed primarily through the medium of poetry. FVPS2021 will host a series of panels, guest speakers, workshops, and public dialogues regarding film and video poetry throughout the course of the symposium. In addition to the screenings programmers also curate a 30-day gallery exhibition.
There are no restrictions regarding total running time of films submitted. 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 language of origin.
The Film and Video Poetry Symposium calls for poetry films, filmpoems, digital-poetry, poetry video, Cin(E)-Poetry, spoken word films, videopoema, visual poetry, choreopoems, poetrinca, media poetry, and all films and video that are driven by onscreen text.
The Film and Video Poetry Symposium also excepts and supports experimental film and video work that explores language and/or literature whether it be oral, written, visual, or symbolic. This includes non-narrative work and the avant-guard. We strongly consider work that challenges traditional and current visual communication methods while continuing to function as a mode for exploring narrative forms and personal expression.
The Film and Video Poetry Symposium also calls for essay film, works of epistolary cinema, animation, choreopoems, performance art film and video, episodic content, oratorical works, documentary, video art, media art and installation, works created through immersive technologies, and episodic programming. Please see categories below for more details.
The deadline is September 4 and the submission fee is $20 per film, video, or media project. Click through for descriptions of each category and additional vital details, as well as the submission form and payment button.
REELpoetry/HoustonTX 2021 begins February 24
I’ve been remiss in so much lately, but especially in reporting on the various online poetry film festivals here. In part, this is because my own internet connection isn’t really up to the challenge of taking in such things. But if you’re fortunate to live somewhere with better WiFi, you don’t want to miss the REELpoetry festival, 24-28 February. Check out the full and varied program (and note that all times are in GMT -6). In addition to screenings of the competition films, there’s an interview with Sarah Tremlett, author of a forthcoming book on the poetics of poetry film; a selection of films from Scotland’s StAnza International Poetry Festival; two fabulous multi-filmmaker projects, Chaucer Cameron’s Wild Whispers and Lucy English’s Book of Hours; and more. As their official description notes, “REELpoetry is a dynamic 5 day curated international festival featuring collaborations among filmmakers, poets, musicians and artists to create poemfilms and videopoetry […] screening short pieces from 26 countries and 68 creatives including 9 from Houston. Networking opportunities in real time each day, interactive workshops, talks, Q&A.” Check it out.
