I hesitated on how to title this list. As I thought about films I liked and that inspired me, I realised that I didn’t want to title this ‘typographic films’ because it suggests that the emphasis in all my choices is all about the typography. Sometimes in poetry film it is. The lettering, whether fonts, or by hand, can take centre stage for an entire piece. Or it can take centre stage for significant parts of a film, whether that is significant in total time or significant in moment. But for me, I am excited by the use of typography not the dominance of typography in a genre which is diverse and engaging through the variations of all the elements at a filmmaker’s disposal: sound, image, lettering, music, etc.
I was originally trained as a typographic designer, predominantly for print and books. A classic essay by Beatrice Warde (The Crystal Goblet, or printing should be invisible, 1932) describes the role of typography as a crystal-clear transparent goblet — a means to let the content (the red wine) shine through. A useful thought for the design of many books. Warde is arguing for a typography that supports and facilitates the text in a beautiful way. Though of course typography isn’t invisible and the visual choices are there on the page. Matthew Butterick has debunked the crystal goblet as a metaphor.
Butterick argues that the goblet is:
An appealing metaphor, but totally inapt. … [T]ypography is the visual component of the written word. But the converse is also true: without typography, a text has no visual characteristics. A goblet can be invisible because the wine is not. But text is already invisible, so typography cannot be. Rather than wine in a goblet, a more apt parallel might be helium in a balloon: the balloon gives shape and visibility to something that otherwise cannot be seen.
Typography can be the visual component of the written word in poetry film, but in a time-based media, the word can be manifest in many more ways, alongside, blended with, or instead of visually. The poetry can have many characteristics that are ‘visual’ because they are part of a film, though they may not be typographic. Poetry can be represented through image alone, moving footage, through audible language, sound effects, music and so on. Come back to typography and the lettering itself is affected by the timing and/or animation of text in addition to the 2-d factors such as layout, size, colour and font selection.
The typographic ‘balloon’ can be functional and practical — adding subtitles in the same or another language, and somewhat separate or external to the film. Or the ‘balloon’ can be part of the aesthetic choices and integral to the whole impact of the film. In this selection of ten films, my choices have come out of thinking about the aesthetic impact of the typography and the allure that it adds to the film as a whole.
In no particular order … ten typographically alluring films.
CRUSH
Film-maker/poet: Janet Lees
UK
I could have picked any one of a number of Janet Lees’ films. Her photography is very strong, and her typography is chosen with finesse to go with her images. Quiet, fine-weight fonts give quiet impact without being problematic with legibility, while the positioning and animation is beautifully done. Classic and understated.
SEX & VIOLENCE #4: WHAT’S INSIDE A GIRL?
Film-maker/poet: Kristy Bowen
USA
Typewriter fonts can be horribly overused in unhelpful ways. Typewriter has an obvious aesthetic appeal, a bit grungy, and with lots of retro-vibes. Like the beleaguered Comic Sans, their use can leave you thinking: ‘Yes, but why?’ or worse: ‘Oh no! Really? Out of everything you chose this?’ However, in this film by Kristy Bowen I think it is a great choice. Simple, great layout and timing, and as Dave Bonta said in his review: creepy.
THERE’S A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT
Film-maker: Susan McCann
USA
Poet: Emily Dickinson
I watched this at Ó Bhéal’s Winter Warmer event (November 2022). This is a virtuoso play with cut-out lettering. I think the craft of making this lettering, and the skill in filming it, is just gorgeous. I’ll leave you to discover what it looks like…
PROFILE
Film-maker/poet: R.W. Perkins
USA
A complete change of pace and style for this ‘oldie but a goodie’ (as Joe Wicks has said about a classic workout exercise). And like a high energy Joe Wicks starting some squats, I am still as excited and delighted by the energy of this film as when I first watched it some years ago.
I just love the interplay between the voice and the text on screen, and the text on screen that is not part of the voiced poem.
It is so good that I want to be very picky about the typographic detail. For example, the ‘rivers of white’ (or in this case black) that are left in the setting of the Jack Kerouac quote. Going back to the crystal goblet metaphor – this is very much a clunky and chipped cheap tumbler here. It is not wrong as such, more than likely it is just what came out when the setting is clicked on ‘justify’. But it highlights the pitfalls of using that particular feature of computer text-setting all too clearly. Fine-tuning the typography with subtle and ‘invisible’ tweaks to this would make me even more happy to watch it.
IMAGININGS
Film-maker: Anja Hiddinga
Netherlands
In Imaginings six young, deaf signed-word artists present raps in sign language. At first glance the type in this film is functional – it is subtitling for those who don’t know sign language to enjoy the film and understand what the people are saying. But I include this film here because the functional has been done so well that it becomes part of the aesthetic energy and appeal of the film. The film was screened at Zebra Poetry Film Festival in Berlin in 2022 where I was very happy to have the opportunity to watch it twice. I wanted to talk about it here because the subtitling is so brilliantly done. The positioning of the subtitles mean that you can focus on the hands and expression of the sign language. It would have been so easy to leave the subtitles down at the bottom of the page and the face and hands of the performers would have become secondary. But it is the subtlety of movement of the type that is genius. It makes me wonder if the movement was hard to animate, and it certainly makes the text slightly less legible at times, but it keeps the text so tightly tied to the energy and passion of the performers that, without a doubt, it adds to the allure of this film.
I can only find the trailer viewable online, but I think there is enough to see what I’m trying to describe.
The effort and style with which the subtitles have been provided for me (as a non-signer) makes me more determined that we should be making more effort with subtitles in return for the deaf community. And that is the very least that the performers are hoping for in their imaginings for the future.
THE FERROVORES
Film-maker/poet: Ian Gibbins
Australia
I’m generally not a fan of landscape footage in which there is blowing wind, the waving of a blade of grass, the tremble of a spider’s web, or a shaft of light. It is an almost immediate turn-off because it is often the bearer of a slow, ponderous film that just isn’t my cup of tea. But in this film by Ian Gibbins, the treatment of the typography turns this around for me. It has some pace and doom about the lettering that is compelling, and juxtaposes well with the footage. The coding text and the text of the poem work well together and add to the interest and feel of the film. More about the subject of the film in Dave Bonta’s review.
ODE ALL’ANSIA / ODE TO ANXIETY
Film-maker/poet: Milena Tipaldo
Italy
This animation has a great handling of modernist typography, very much in the mode of Jan Tschichold and his manifesto Die Neue Typografie (The New Typography), first published in 1928. A fantastic example of how inspiration can be taken from printed graphic design and manipulated in a film. It is tricky to read in English because one wants to follow the delicious animation and design of the primary Italian text, but not a bad typographic solution to a duo-lingual film.
PLASTICPOEMS
Film-makers: Fiona Tinwei Lam, Nhat Truong
Poem: Fiona Tinwei Lam
Canada
Spirals always have allure for me in whatever medium … ancient stone carving, graphic design, clothes or furniture. So I was always going to be drawn to this film. The spiral animation of swirling plastic makes a very effective concrete poem. The film is described as two concrete poems, and there is a distinct shift from the spiral to a floating sea of broken apart plastic. The typography of the spiral is great. The font choice feels like a ubiquitous, dull text font – as such, it is perfect to depict the plastic problem. But it also feels just a bit different to a default, so perhaps it is very carefully chosen. What makes the typography great is the tacky choice of colours and font outlining. It feels like horrible plastic that is swirling in water. And those fine serifs? … They are going to break off and be micro-plastics all too soon.
However, I wanted the second poem to be the breaking apart of the first one and follow on the story. It is that conceptually. But typographically I’m confused and disappointed. The colour is lost but maybe that is fading and degradation over the inordinate time it takes the plastic to break-up? Perhaps the colour should have been tints? The main problem for me though, is that the case changes. What was all capitals has become lower case. The one thing hard plastic isn’t likely to do is to morph into a whole other shape. If the second poem is a whole other thing, then why put them as a pair?
NEW ARCTIC
Film-maker/poet: Allain Daigle
USA
This is a very powerful film, in the strength of the film footage and in the subject matter. But the typography supports it all the way. I think the font choice is excellent, and the positioning of the text relates to the images is superb. The poem is in the text only, not the audio, and this film is exemplary for this approach.
SEED
Film-maker: David C. Montgomery
Poet: Asim Khan
UK
This film is extremely simple typographically – four letters in the four corners of the screen. But the simplicity has been beautifully done and as the letters change and the words they spell change, the film becomes a frenetic but alluring race for the brain to keep up. I’m not sure what the message of this film might be but I’m compelled to keep watching to try to decide.
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:
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
“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.
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.
An international theater festival in Lisbon has added a poetry film competition, with award-winning UK filmpoet Janet Lees as judge. Here’s the call.
Venue: CASA FERNANDO PESSOA: Rua Coelho da Rocha, 16-18 Campo de Ourique, 1250-088 Lisboa, Portugal
This international Poetry Film happening at Casa Fernando Pessoa is part of JÁ FEST, organized 11 – 16 April 2023 by Já International Theatre.
It is open to emerging and experienced artists, first-time videographers, filmmakers and poets. JÁFEST is supported by the Europa Criativa Program so we welcome POETRY FILM submissions from emerging European artists. […]
The festival offers a platform for sharing visual narratives through two In-Competition sections:
THEME 1: SEPARATION & BELONGING
In our turbulent world Separation and Belonging raises the question of where and to whom we belong. To ourselves, perhaps? To nature, to memories, to family, to love, to dreams fulfilled and unfulfilled? Until we parted we did not know we could feel so strongly, we did not know that our good memories could shrivel and vanish, that we may no longer find comfort in them. Through separation we learn a lot about ourselves and our world, don’t we?
Jury President Janet Lees: “Separation and Belonging is a nuanced theme which gives poets and filmmakers a myriad of ways to respond. Separation can remind us of and bring us back to what’s truly important. As for belonging, who, what and where do we belong to – and what, if anything, truly belongs to us? Is belonging always a positive thing, or can it be something that precipitates separation, as in belonging in the sense of ownership? I love this theme because it’s so broad, and gives people freedom within a framework. There is the focus, the ‘container’, of having a specific theme, and there is the freedom of having almost limitless ways to respond to it.”
Inspirations and poems can come from any time period, or it can be your own vers libre.
THEME 2: DISQUIET! said PESSOA, or DESASSOSSEGO COM FERNANDO PESSOA
We invite filmmakers inspired by Pessoa’s work to submit a poetry film base on one of his poems or quotations to the Disquiet! said Pessoa, or Desassossego com Fernando Pessoa section in the competition.
For more details and to submit, visit FilmFreeway.
The world of video poetry is a cosmic sea where seeds of poems grow in a vast fluid of cinematic possibilities. You can meet enthusiastic amateur art projects where an amazing poem is the real protagonist. You can experience works by professional directors or amazing narrators, an attractive deep voice to guide you into the mind of a world known poet or to see for first time images blossom from an unknown poem. You can be touched and even cry watching heroes of a poem come alive on the screen or be overwhelmed with awe watching a dance performance or animation inspired by poetry. The creative collaborations among directors, poets and musicians around the world establish a new art genre, video poetry, as a new way to experience poetry today.
I don’t know from where to start. From the beginning or from the end. From the past or from the present. I will choose to take a trip from future to past. I will base my top ten list in the outstanding and awarded films that captured our souls in the ten last years of the International Video Poetry Festival and I will end up with some glamsy memories from the international digital platform http://filmpoetry.org – both projects organized and curated by the Institute for Experimental Arts.
Let’s start!
THEY PROMISED US A FUTURE (Mexico)
Director & Poet: Laura R. Tolentino
An amazing experimental film poem. Laura R. Tolentino created a very strong performance video poem that brings together technology, psychedelic intimate visions and ceremonial community futuristic lifestyles. The video offers strong comments about the social and environmental issues of our era with unique, extraordinary way. Premiered and awarded at the 10th International Video Poetry Festival in Athens.
HEBEERIN (Russia)
Director & Poet: Inga Shepeleva
Hebeerin or The Bear Festival is an art project inspired by the world of spirits from the mythology of the Yakut people. It is a fragile celebration on the remains of a slain animal. An extraordinary atmosphere worships the forces of nature. Watching the film poem we understand that we are small, we are all children inside the palm of the universe.
Inga Shepeleva was born and raised in an academic town near Yakutsk, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in a family of scientists who have dedicated their lives to studying permafrost. In 2017, she produced her first cycle of videos based on her poetry work called Hebeerin, dedicated to Yakut mythology. The video art cycle received awards and nominations at Russian and European video poetry and experimental film festivals, such as the video poetry festival Fifth Leg (Saint-Petersburg), The International Video Poetry Festival (Athens) and International Experimental Film Festival Zebra (Berlin).
CHAMADA GERAL (Portugal)
Director: Manuel Vilarinho
Poet: Mário-Henrique Leiria (1923–1980)
Mário-Henrique Leiria was a Portuguese surrealist poet. Born in Lisbon, he studied at the Escola de Belas Artes. He and his fellow surrealists were involved in an absurdist plot to overthrow the dictatorship of Antonio Salazar. The performance in this video poem is very strong. It fits perfectly with the thematic of the poem.
THE LIFE WE LIVE IS NOT LIFE ITSELF (Australia / Greece)
Director: Ian Gibbins
Poetry: Tasos Sagris
Music: Whodoes
A production of the Institute for Experimental Arts, this video is a collaboration of the Greek spoken word / multi media duet Tasos Sagris & Whodoes with the Australian experimental director Ian Gibbins. Tasos Sagris’s poem, with its haunting soundtrack by Whodoes, offers us an extended exploration of lives lived in parallel worlds, at cross-purposes, in and out of love, around the world. The video, awarded and presented in more than 45 festivals around the world, invite us to observe deep inside us for a real reason to live today. But what is the reality? What is mere illusion? Can there be more to life than simply living?
WHITMAN ILLUSTRATED: Song of Myself (USA)
Director: Allen Crawford
Poetry: Walt Witman
Illustrator Allen Crawford has turned Whitman’s poem Song of Myself into a sprawling, 256-page work of art. The densely-handwritten text and illustrations intermingle in a way that’s both surprising and wholly in tune with the spirit of the poem—exuberant, rough, and wild. “Whitman Illuminated: Song of Myself” is a sensational reading experience, an artifact in its own right, and a masterful tribute to the Good Gray Poet.
IF I GO OUT WALKING WITH MY DEAD FRIENDS (Germany / Greece)
Directors: Aleksandra Corovic and Alkistis Kafetzi
Poet: Ritta Boumi-Pappa
The poem If I go out walking with my dead friends belongs to the book A Thousand Murdered Girls which was published in 1964 by the communist poet Ritta Boumi-Pappa . The book consists of 65 poems, each named after a woman who was sentenced to death for participating in the Greek Resistance against the Nazis. The film, produced by the Institute for Experimental Arts, is a humble memorial for the female heroines mentioned in Papa’s verses but also for today’s freedom fighters. It rings the bell in the consciences of people, pointing out the risk of suppression of freedom within a decaying social system. The past and the present are connected through a visualized dramaturgy of associative patterns. The human body becomes a canvas on which mankind paints its struggles and battles. Its reality is caught in confrontation between projected values and societal demands. How do society’s proceedings reflect on the individual experience?
iRONY (Australia)
Director: Radheya Jegatheva
An Oscar qualified and AACTA nominated filmmaker based in Perth, Australia and born in Johor, Malaysia to parents of South Korean, Japanese, Indian and Malaysian ancestry, the poet and filmmaker Radheya Jegatheva inspects a wide range of elements through a critical lens and bring awareness to terrible issues such as cyberbullying and teen suicide. The animated video poem causes discussion or at least contemplation about these issues in a creative way, and make people reconsider the overconsumption of social media or the ways in which it can be harmful.
MULTISPECIES OFFLINE (UK)
Director: mmmmmfilms
mmmmmfilms is a collaboration between Adrian Fisher, Luna Montenegro and Gines Olivares. Since 2003 they have been making art films that show in festivals, biennials and galleries in Europe and Latin America. The Multispecies Offline is an intelligent video poetry that combines performance and spoken word and cinematic video poetry. Exploring different modalities of social media, theatre, film noir, photography and overlay ‘multispecies offline’ is a film that considers our relations with the human and the non-human.
THE HUMAN CHILD (Ukraine)
Director: Lika Nadir
Our life balances between internal freedom and belonging to others. The inner measure of truth never lies, like the human body. Try to live your life so as to penetrate through it the truth for those who will come to this world after you. Lika Nadir was born in the Crimea. At the age of 14, she began writing: short scripts and stories. An art historian by training. In 2019 she got accepted to the Moscow School of New Cinema (workshop of Dmitry Mamulia). In her works Lika raises social themes, and also seeks the aesthetics of naturalness and realistic existence of actors. Notable works: video for La Priest, collaboration with L’Officiel Russia.
I DON’T OWN ANXIETY (Australia)
Filmmaker: Marie Craven
Poetry: Kelli Russell Agodon
A film poem that is outstanding in content and form, in lyrics and photography, in atmosphere and meaning. The poem is strong and the voice over grabs your attention from the first moment.
The sixth Cadence Video Poetry Festival in Seattle (USA), will take place in person and online in April and May 2023. It is presented by Northwest Film Forum and programmed in collaboration with Seattle author Chelsea Werner-Jatzke and artist Rana San.
The organisers say:
“Over the last five years the festival has screened 272 video poems from 38 countries in 24 languages, and hosted annual youth and adult workshops, touring programs, and artist talks. All selected works at Cadence receive an honorarium, which NWFF began offering artists in 2021 to support the generation and exhibition of their work.
This year’s festival continues as a hybrid program, offering international audiences access to showcases, workshops, and artist talks both in-person and online. Cadence approaches video poetry as a literary genre presented as visual media, cultivating new meaning from the combination of text and moving image. The 2023 call for submissions and Artist-in-Residence applications are now open.”
Submissions are open until 1st March 2023 via FilmFreeway in five categories of video poetry: