~ Nationality: U.K. ~
If I Could Tell You by W. H. Auden
https://vimeo.com/180747404
This is Holocene, a film by Berlin-based photographer and filmmaker Esteban Iljitsch that juxtaposes Auden’s poem (in Tom O’Bedlam’s almost too-perfect reading) with footage of Iceland for a powerful meditation on time and mutability. The Vimeo description:
It’s been two years now since we took off to Iceland with some cameras, a raincoat and a five-wheel-hooptie.
In the never ending summer days we lost sense of time and space, got dizzy walking around sulfur fields, had lobster soup next to black beaches and accidentally rejuvenated our feet in a hot spring.
There must have been reasons for all this – if we could tell you, we would let you know.Concept: ESTEBANxILJITSCH
Director/DP/Edit: Esteban
Actor: Manuel Iljitsch
Factotum: Hannes Kleager
Colorist: Nicke Jacobsson
Sounddesigner: Moritz Staub
Voiceover: Tom O’Bedlam
Poem: „If I Could Tell You“ by W.H. AudenThanks to the great people involved who made this possible and Anna for pushing me to finish it!!!!
Kumukanda by Kayo Chingonyi and Sean Graham
Coming-of-age rituals are at the center of this powerful, uniquely collaborative poetry dance film from director Fiona Melville and producer/creative director Nathalie Teitler for the Dancing Words project, featuring poet/dancer Kayo Chingonyi, poet/dancer/choreographer Sean Graham, and a composition by Gemma Weekes (who is also an accomplished British writer).
According to the Wikipedia page on the Lovale/Luvale people of Zambia and Angola,
In Zambia the Luvale people hold the ‘Makishi festival’ to mark the end of the ‘kumukanda’ (or ‘initiation’). Every 5 years or so, boys from the same age group (young teenagers) are taken into the bush for 1–2 months where they undergo several rites of passage into manhood. These involve learning certain survival skills, learning about women and how to be a good husband, learning about fatherhood, and also they are circumcised. The Luvale consider uncircumcised men to be dirty or unhygienic. It is said that in some very rural areas where the kumukanda is maintained in its strictest traditional sense that if a woman is to pass by the boy’s ‘bushcamp’ whilst they are undergoing kumukanda then she must be punished, even killed. To celebrate the boys’ completion of the kumukanda the Makishi festival welcomes them back to the village as men.
Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
This “experimental visual poetry” directed by Katie Williamson stars Walter McCord in an imaginative riff on Lewis Carroll’s great nonsense poem. The soundtrack includes, if I’m not mistaken, a track by the Master Musicians of Jajouka.
Hammersmith by Sean O’Brien (excerpts)
This new poetry film by UK filmmaker Kate Sweeney, based on a poem by Sean O’Brien, was commissioned by the 2016 Newcastle Poetry Festival. The Vimeo description reads:
In response to extracts from Sean O’ Brien’s same-titled poem, ‘Hammersmith’ is an elegiac, hand-drawn animation sweeping through 1950’s London. drawn from the iconic cinematography from Jules Dessin’s 1950 noir film, ‘Night And The City’.
The soundtrack by Lady Caroline Mary includes a song by Bernadette Sweeney.
Can’t Sleep by Lucy English
https://vimeo.com/169616371
Kind of a horror-movie vibe to this filmpoem by James W. Norton, who writes on Vimeo,
This film is an artistic response to the wonderfully sublime and uncanny poem ‘Can’t Sleep’ written and read by Lucy English for her project ‘The Book of Hours‘. [links added]
Sweet Liquor by Malika Booker
The latest film in the Dancing Words project directed by Fiona Melville (with creative direction from Nathalie Teitler) pairs poet Malika Booker and dancer/choreographer Leon Rose. Here’s the description from the project website:
Sweet Liquor is a collaboration between renowned black British poet, Malika Booker and dancer/choreographer Leon Rose. The poem is taken from Booker’s prize winning collection Pepper Seed (Peepal Tree Press) and explores the world of the soca fete. It tells the story of a young Caribbean soldier, recently returned from war with psychological scars, who finds out that he has been re-drafted.
The piece explores a dance-poetry collaboration in which the dance centers around social dancing: its impact on the individual and the community. The aim was to make something experimental and edgy with a political message. In selecting the dancer/choreographer the goal was to find someone who would look totally natural dancing soca, as well as being a skilled professional dancer/choreographer. Latin and contemporary dancer, internationally known Leon Rose, who has twenty years of dance and choreography experience, was the perfect choice: both he and Malika have been going to Carnival since they were a few months old. Their mothers would argue that they took part in Carnival while in the womb. When the piece was being filmed, it quickly became clear that there was something magical in the way the two artists danced together; it spoke both of the relationship between the man and the woman in the poem, but also spoke to the wider relationships between genders in this part of the world. Here we see a woman as the strong voice and rock able to contain and comfort a young, damaged man. Combined with the beautiful and haunting pan music of composer Kyron Akal, (composed for this piece) the result was a piece which challenges stereotypes of soca and carnival and brings a beautiful, fierce poem to life.
The Ugly Daughter by Warsan Shire
Dancer/choreographer Ella Mesma performs as Warsan Shire recites her poem. This was one of two dance-poetry pieces premiered at London’s Southbank Centre on October 6, 2014 under the aegis of The Complete Works II, directed by Nathalie Teitler, which gave rise to the Dancing Words project.
Aubade by Lucy English
A collaboration between Matt Mullins (audiovisual composition) and Lucy English (poem, voiceover) for English’s Book of Hours project.
Jigsawed by Tania Hershman
This is I love it how conversations flow from family to brown bread, an elegant, black-and-white poetry film by Ana Levisky with an interesting directive:
From landscapes to pubs and stores, a sequence of spots where personal episodes occurred is presented in an attempt to capture the geographical power in the absence of events or characters.
Bristol-based writer Tania Hershman reads her poem in the soundtrack, accompanied by Christopher Kestell’s original score on piano.
