~ Nationality: Singapore ~

The Laundry Can Wait by Cyril Wong

https://vimeo.com/168577485

The winner in the Best Valentine category at Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival 2017, as well as a finalist for Best Overall Production. Director Sarah Howell (Dream Bravely) describes it on Vimeo as

An ode to lazy Sundays and love. This visual poem will have your heart sighing.

Performed and written by Singaporean artist, Cyril Wong (cyrilwong.wordpress.com/)
Yvonne Mak as ‘The Girl’
Pooja Dargan as ‘The Girlfriend’
Shot and edited by Sarah Howell.

Produced as part of Dream Bravely’s visual poem series featuring some of the top Singaporean spoken word artists.

You Are 6 Years Old and She is Teaching You How to Ride a Bicycle by Stephanie Dogfoot

https://vimeo.com/134787597

Stephanie Dogfoot is a performance poet with numerous slam championships in Singapore and the UK under her belt, but here filmmaker Sarah Howell of the Dream Bravely production company has made the unusual (for performance poetry) decision to focus not on the poet but on the poem, with salutary results. This is also a great example of how to use video to drive home the political message of a poem. It was made in collaboration with the Haque Centre of Acting & Creativity for “the August [2015] installment of their storytelling night Metaphors Be With You: Childhood Stories,” according to a blog post by Dogfoot. Michael Lim was the cinematographer, with music by Celer and Konrad Feucht.

This is one of the films in the Zebrino Competition at the upcoming ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival next week, and I need to give a tip of the hat to the ZEBRA Poetry Film Club channel on Vimeo, which has been adding films at a great rate in the build-up to the festival. I’ll be sourcing films from that channel for weeks to come, but if you can’t wait, go there now and gorge.