~ Filmmaker: Jim Haverkamp ~
The Danger Meditations by Marc Zegans
Directed by Ellen Hemphill and Jim Haverkamp of Archipelago Theatre as a companion piece to Manicotti, based also on a poem from Marc Zegans’ Typewriter Underground, with the voice-over this time by Tom Marriott. See its dedicated webpage for the full credits, and the main Archipelago Productions listing for more of their cinematic and theatrical works.
Like Manicotti, The Danger Meditations premiered at the Henry Miller library, and has also been screened at the Durham Typocalypse and an Athens Typewriter Underground event. In addition, it was an official selection of the 2018 Juteback Poetry Film Festival in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Manicotti by Marc Zegans
An interpretation of one of the poems from Marc Zegans’ Typewriter Underground co-directed by Ellen Hemphill and Jim Haverkamp from the Chapel Hill, North Carolina-based Archipelago Theatre. Haverkamp is the narrator and one of the videographers, along with Alex Maness, and the score was composed by Allison Leyton-Brown. Click through to Vimeo for the full credits.
This film, together with a companion piece which I’ll share tomorrow, premiered at a theatrical production of the Typewriter Underground at the Henry Miller Library, Big Sur, California. It was also screened at the 2019 Cosmic Rays Film Festival, at the Durham Typocalypse, “a celebration of all things typewriter,” and at the Athens [Georgia] Typewriter Underground.
When Walt Whitman Was a Little Girl by M.C. Biegner
A gently surreal, subversive and affecting film by Jim Haverkamp, with narration adapted and lightly condensed from a prose poem by M.C. Biegner. Here’s how Haverkamp describes it on the front page of his website:
Not your typical History Channel biography, When Walt Whitman Was a Little Girl tells the startling, unuttered truth about America’s good gray poet. Starting out as an ordinary nine year old girl, Walt is soon catapulted into the world with her senses ablaze.
Based on a prose poem by M.C. Biegner, the film mixes drama, dance, puppetry, and oddball humor to portray the world through the eyes of a ‘sensitive kid.’ Walt awakens to the mysteries and wonder of nature, leaves her home to seek fame and adventure, is plunged into the horror of war, and finally begins to understand the unspoken poetry of childhood.
In addition to winning a raft of film festival awards, it was featured in the Summer/Fall 2013 issue of TriQuarterly.
