~ News and Views ~

Review of The Body Electric Poetry Film Festival in The Third Form

For her June “Third Form” column at Connotation Press, Erica Goss reports on the first Body Electric Poetry Film Festival. I’m continually frustrated by the paucity of reviews of poetry film festivals, so I was especially glad to get Erica’s impressions of this one (and of the city of Fort Collins, Colorado, which I’ve never visited). One thing I didn’t realize was that the festival organizer, R.W. Perkins, played a crucial role in keeping open the venue in which it was held:

A town that values culture should have an independent theater, but the Lyric Cinema was in danger of closing is doors last year. They needed a digital projector, which costs approximately $150,000, a steep price for a small business. Enter Kickstarter, with a high-energy video by R.W. Perkins. The Lyric raised the money for its projector, remaining a favorite place for movies and off-beat events (like The Body Electric).

I was also cheered to hear how well attended the festival was. Perkins obviously really knows how design and promote a popular event, even if it includes the dreaded word “poetry” in its description.

The thirty-four video poems that appeared in The Body Electric ranged from sensitive, emotional stories such as “Writer’s Block,” “The Barking Horse,” and “Husniyah” to edgy, animated videos (“Anna Blume”) to the tragically comic (“Portugal.”) Some featured exquisite, hand-made drawings (“Afterlight,” “Becoming Judas.”) I cannot emphasize enough how much these beautifully crafted videos benefit from seeing them on the big screen; for example, details of Cheryl Gross’s drawings for “Becoming Judas,” done in archival ball-point pen, are simply not visible on a tiny computer screen, and the complex layering of text, still images, photographs and rapid film clips of “The Mantis Shrimp” gain strength and power when viewed in the theater.

Read the rest of Erica’s review, which also includes examples of six of her favorite films from the festival.

Swoon film “Drift” wins Trevigliopoesia Festival contest

Congratulations to Mark Neys, A.K.A. Swoon, for winning the sixth edition of “La parola immaginata,” the poetry-film contest associated with the Trevigliopoesia Festival in Italy, with his film Drift. It features a poem by the Irish poet Paul Perry, “For two NATO soldiers who drowned in an attempt to recover supplies from a river in the province of Badghis, Western Afghanistan, November, 2009.” As regular followers of this site know, Swoon’s videopoetry is a particular favorite around here, though honestly, all nine of the finalist films seemed deserving to me. (Thank god I wasn’t one of the judges!) With 65 films in the Moving Poems archive — and I don’t even post everything he uploads to Vimeo — Swoon is without a doubt one of the most productive filmmakers in the poetry-film world. Given that, it’s impressive that his films are also of such high quality, as the jury at Trevigliopoesia recognized.

Producer wanted at Motionpoems

The folks at Motionpoems, the Minnesota-based arts organization responsible for so many stunning poetry films in the last several years, are hiring a producer.

Motionpoems is seeking an ambitious, self-starting Producer to bring artist relations, project coordination, and production skills to a 12-month project, July 2013-June 2014. The Producer will manage production of a dozen new Motionpoems shorts and organize a public screening and online distribution of the films.

Click through for the full description.

Upcoming poetry film festival deadlines

2013 may be an off-year for ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, but that doesn’t stop them from promoting other people’s festivals on their Facebook page. A recent posting listed all the upcoming deadlines for submission — something we should do here more often, as well:

The first of these, you may recall, I have some connection to as one of the directors, and I will be attending the festival in August. More about that at a later date. For now, I just want to stress that filmmakers should read the guidelines carefully. Unlike many other festivals, we only consider submissions sent via post: on a DVD, CD or memory stick, and only in .mov or .m4v form. Alastair Cook says: “We’re receiving some great poetry-film from all corners of the world. And we are so pleased to be able to screen it! Now organising the events and workshops for the festival, so pleased to have such an amazing historic venue in such a beautiful town.”

For a more comprehensive list of regular and recent poetry film festivals, see the Moving Poems Links page.

On literary film-making: an evening with The Brooklyn Rail @ 7:00 pm on May 23rd

Visual Verse celebrates artists who use film and video to create work based on short stories and documentaries about writers or films which revolve around poetry. After presenting work by four leading literary filmmakers — Ram Devineni, John Scott, Cheryl Gross, and Immy Humes — a discussion will be moderated by Rachael Rakes, film editor for The Brooklyn Rail. That’s coming up this Thursday evening. The location is 52 Prince St, New York, New York. For more details, see the McNally Jackson bookstore website.

Call for submissions: Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film Competition 2013

Ó Bhéal (Irish for by word of mouth) is a weekly poetry event in Cork which, since 2010, has also been sponsoring an annual screening of poetry films and videopoems from around the world. This year they’re taking it to the next level, associating with the IndieCork festival of independent cinema in October and holding a poetry-film competition. View the complete guidelines at their website. Here’s the meat of it:

We are now open for submissions. Thirty films will be shortlisted and screened during the IndieCork festival. One winner will be selected by the Ó Bhéal jury.

Deadline for submissions is the 15th of September 2013.

Entry is free to anyone, and should be made via email to poetryfilm [at] obheal.ie – including the following in an attached word document:

    • Name and duration of Film
    • Name of director
    • Country of origin
    • Contact details
    • Name of Poet
    • Name of Poem
    • Synopsis
    • Filmmaker biography
    • and a Link to download a high-resolution version of the film.

Films must interpret or be based on a poem, and have been completed no earlier than the 1st August 2011. They may not exceed 10 minutes in duration. Non-English language films will require subtitles.

Videopoems of place featured at Connotation Press

This month in her Third Form column at Connotation Press, Erica Goss presents “nine poetry films using the following criteria: first, the native language of the poet or filmmaker had to be the language used in narration, and second, the country of the poet or filmmaker had to be prominent in the video.” Her choices are all films I remember with fondness, and it’s interesting to see them presented side by side. I’ve shared so many videopoems at Moving Poems now, it’s easy to lose track of the outstanding ones, so further acts of curation like Erica’s are invaluable. Go look.

McNally Jackson Bookstore in NYC is holding an…

McNally Jackson Bookstore in NYC is holding an event on May 23rd celebrating literary filmmakers. We’re looking to assemble a panel of film/video artists who specialize in poetry films, films based on short stories or documentaries about writers or the writing process. The night will be moderated by Rachel Rakes, film editor at the Brooklyn Rail. If you’re a filmmaker whose work falls into any of these categories and would like to showcase it at the event, don’t hesitate to contact us. Send any inquiries to musa@mcnallyjackson.com.

Call for submissions: Liberated Words Poetry Film Festival 2013

A new videopoetry festival is planned for Bristol, UK in October. The deadline for submissions is June 30th.

Festival organisers Sarah Tremlett and Lucy English in conjunction with Colin Brown of Poetry Can welcome videopoems of 3 minutes or less to be screened at Liberated Words poetry film festival, as part of Bristol Poetry Festival, October 2013.

There are two separate categories for this year’s inaugural festival:

Four by Four

Videopoems of three minutes or less are invited as a response to a printed poem by four poets.

The poets and poems are:
Philip Gross: Heaps
Lucy English: from ‘Take Me to the City’
Jo Bell: The Shipwright’s Love Song
Johnny Fluffypunk: Bill Blake’s Birthday Cake for Adrian Mitchell

Download all the poems here

Download an entry form here

Winning entries of each poem will be screened as the highlight of the festival at the Arnolfini, Bristol.

Liberated Words II

We are also inviting videopoetry makers to submit 3 minutes of their most recent work broadly supporting the theme of ‘liberated words’.

The selected poetry films will be shown at a Liberated Words II screening at the Arnolfini Bristol.

Download Rules and Regulations here

Download an entry form here

Download a release form here

See the announcement post for background and other information.

Three Motionpoems screenings upcoming in Minnesota

Via their email newsletter, I just learned about two upcoming events from Motionpoems in Minneapolis/St. Paul: a double screening of a dozen new poetry films on April 24th, and a screening of poetry films by Minnesota authors on April 29th. The full details are currently posted at www.motionpoems.com, though for archival purposes, let me also link directly to the image file.

I’m sure Angella and Todd will eventually post their 2013 films to Vimeo, probably one a month as they have in the past, but if you’re anxious to see them all now and on the big screen, then clearly you need to get to the world premiere screenings on April 24th!

Ode to Gray by Sherman Alexie

A charming poem followed by a brief discussion with Bill Moyers from American public television. I post this not only because I like Sherman Alexie, but because I love the color gray.

Poetry film festival trailer: The Body Electric

I love the idea of a trailer for a poetry film festival: it makes poetry seem so exciting! (Which, to a poetry nerd like me, it actually is.) More than that, I love this particular trailer for The Body Electric from R.W. Perkins:

http://youtu.be/gDhpANK8sS8
Watch on YouTube

It helps that the dude in the Muybridge animation looks very much like Walt Whitman (“I sing the body electric”).

In an exchange about the trailer at the Visible Verse Festival group page on Facebook, Perkins writes:

The trailer has been working well for TBE, I’ve met many people interested in the idea of a poetry film festival but don’t really know what that means. The trailer has really helped move that conversation along.