~ Athens International Video Poetry Festival ~
International Video Poetry Festival program set
In my recent round-up of where to watch poetry films this month, I forgot to include Athens! The International Video Poetry Festival, as it’s called these days, organized by +The Institute [for Experimental Arts], is in its 11th incarnation.
124 FILMS | 42 COUNTRIES |
40 PERFORMANCES | 2 WORKSHOPSFRIDAY 19 & SATURDAY 20 APRIL 2024
Free Self Organized Theatre Empros
Riga Palamidi 2- Psiri – Athens GreeceInternational Video Poetry Festival celebrates eleven years of creative collaboration with more than 2000 artists from 85 countries in general, a world of poetic visions for the benefit of humanity. Poetry, cinema, music and spoken word come together to communicate the inspiration, dreams, ideas and hopes of all of us.
We welcome you to this magical world.
Click through for the list of countries and filmmaker/poets (also on Facebook) as well as information on the workshop and lecture scheduled for Saturday the 20th. I’m so happy this festival continues to be held.
Festival circuit round-up
It’s the New Year and perhaps a good time to be thinking about film festivals and competitions. Is this the year you will enter for the first time? Or to bring an, as yet, unseen project to light? Or to think about what new films you might create in 2024 …
But first, with a quick pause for thought (or maybe to take the actions suggested) – here is a throwback to a lovely little film posted on Moving Poems way back in 2012.
And now, here are the major festivals for poetry films coming up for entry (linked to their FilmFreeway page where you will find more details). Some were first posted earlier when the calls initially went out (but a reminder that the deadline is coming up closer), and others are fresh!
- Cadence – deadlines 15 January / 5 February
Event: April, Seattle USA - REELpoetry – final deadline 22 January
Event: April, Houston USA - Weimar Poetry Film Award – deadline 31 January
Event: May/June, Weimar Germany - International Video Poetry Festival in Athens – deadline 1 February
Event: April, Athens Greece - Les Instants Video – deadline 15 March
Event: October, Marseille France - Midwest Video Poetry Fest – deadlines 1 May / 1 June
Event: October, Madison Wisconsin USA
Remember to check all the rules of entry carefully to make sure you comply (or it is just irritating for the organisers), and make your own judgements on whether to enter. These are all established events, but be aware that there are some dodgy festivals out there that have little merit in getting your film exposed to an interested audience but will take hefty sums in entry fees.
No need to rush it either … festivals and deadlines are an ongoing roll, and if you miss one, there will always be another festival or another year that comes along. Often there is a long or an unlimited timeframe in which a completed film will be eligible, and no impact if you don’t get on the case immediately.
Read more about entering festivals in this past interview with Adam Stone on Moving Poems.
Wishing everyone good luck in 2024!
10th International Video Poetry Festival in Athens, Greece: Programme published
The 10th International Video Poetry Festival in Athens takes place from 28th September to 1st October.
The event details and full programme are now online on their website and also available to view or download as a pdf document.
Within poetry film, the curated programmes include HUMAN LIFE TODAY, FEMINIST STRUGGLES, INVISIBLE LIFE, HUMAN ECOLOGY & PLANET EARTH, LGBTQI STRUGGLES, POLITICAL & SOCIAL AWARENESS. And the festival includes a range of other films, live performances and talks.
Festivals, Competitions, Journals: Open for Submissions
Source: Thomas William, Unsplash
CURRENTLY ACCEPTING POETRY FILM SUBMISSIONS:
Festival Fotogenia, Mexico
Entry fee: US$25
Submissions close: 20 September 2020
Versi di Luce, Italy
Entry fee: US$10
Submissions close: 30 September 2020
Deanna Tulley Multimedia Prize, USA
(from Slippery Elm Literary Journal, University of Findlay, Ohio)
Entry fee: US$10
Submissions close: 30 September 2020
Queensland Poetry Festival: Film & Poetry Challenge, Australia
(for Australian artists)
Entry fee: AUD$15
Submissions close: 10 October 2020
Mayflower 400 Poetry Film Competition, UK
Entry fee: free
Submissions close: 19 October 2020
Helios Sun Poetry Film Festival, Mexico
Entry fee: US$15
Submissions close: 31 October 2020
Athens International Poetry Film Festival, Greece
Entry fee US$6
Submissions close: 27 November 2020
REELPoetry Festival, USA
Entry fee: US$15
Submissions close: 15 December 2020
International Migration & Environmental Film Festival, Portugal
Entry fee: US$20.50
Submissions close: 31 January 2021
Caafa International Film Festival, Nigeria
(for African and African-descended artists)
Entry fee: US$10
Submissions close: 18 June 2021
Call for work: 9th International Video Poetry Festival in Athens
photo: The Reorientalist, 2013 by Juan Ford
The International Video Poetry Festival in Athens attempts to create an open public space for the creative expression of all tendencies and streams of contemporary visual poetry. The IVPF has been around since 2012. It is one of the largest international platforms for video poetry. Every year, it offers poets, film and festival makers from all over the world a platform for creative exchange, brainstorming and meeting with a broad audience. With poetry readings, live performances, concerts, retrospectives, exhibitions, performances, workshops and lectures present in various sections the diversity of the genre of video poetry and spoken word music.
The International Video Poetry Festival happens in two different zones. The first day is the Show Room Video Poetry, a unique zone that will include video poems, visual poems, short film poems and cinematic poetry and performances by artists from all over the world (America, Asia, Europe, Africa). The second day is the Live Improvisation Zone with multimedia poetry readings, concerts with experimental music, workshops and live spoken word performances.
Poets, filmmakers, video and digital artists, media and performance artists are called to submit creative works to the 9th Annual International Video Poetry Festival in Athens, Greece. The festival celebrates and will screen a large scope of video projects developed through the medium of poetry. The International Video Poetry Festival will also host a series of panels, guest speakers, workshops, and public dialogues regarding film and video poetry. In addition to the screenings, programmers also curate a video art exhibition.
There are no restrictions regarding when the film was produced or if the film has premiered regionally or internationally. There are no restrictions on subject matter, theme, topic, or the language of origin. The International Video Poetry Festival will accept submissions of poetry films, filmpoems, digital-poetry, poetry video, Cin(E)-Poetry, spoken word films, videopoema, visual poetry, choreopoems, poetrinca, media poetry, and all films and videos that are driven visually by text or voice.
Live performances, video mapping, installation proposals, and grand-scale video art presentations that contain strong aspects of poetry are encouraged. The IVPF also calls for experimental film and video work that explores poetry or literature whether it be oral, written, visual, or symbolic. This includes non-narrative work and the avant-garde. The International Video Poetry also invites you to film video poems based on Allen Ginsberg’s and Gregory Corso’s poetry.
The IVPF strongly considers artwork that examines and challenges traditional visual communication methods while continuing to function as a tool for exploring poetry.The International Video Poetry Festival will consider documentaries that focus on poets, poems, poetry, poetic technique, literary movements, and historical events within these realms. The documentaries must have English or Greek subtitles.
The IVPF also calls for video work that explores poetry and literature whether it be oral, written, visual, or symbolic. This includes the film essay or cinematic essay, non-narrative work, and the avant-guard. We will also strongly consider work that challenges traditional and current visual communication methods while continuing to function as a mode for exploring narrative and personal expression.
Organizer and promoter of the International Video Poetry Festival are the Institute for Experimental Arts in co-operation with Void Network.
Every year the committee of the Institute for Experimental Arts the 10 most outstanding video poems of the annual festival. Τhe committee is composed of the official member of the nonprofit cultural society Institute for Experimental Arts.
Deadline: All submissions must be submitted, emailed, or postmarked no later than November 27, 2020.
One to two project titles per submission form is allowed. All languages are allowed (including English or Greek subtitles).
Rules & Terms
Please visit our website for the rules and details on how to submit. IVPF can also receive your submission through FilmFreeway.
Blood Constellations by Malika Ndlovu
Blood Constellations is a beautifully made example of a poetry dance film, a genre showcased many times over the years at Moving Poems.
Boldly directed by Jim Demuth, based in London and China, the film is part of a broader, multi-disciplinary arts collaboration called Singing My Mother’s Song, which explores family and lineage. The overall director of the project is Bristol-based Rebecca Tantony.
The poet is Durban-born Malika Ndlovu, whose rich and passionate voice rings out in word and song on the soundtrack. It is compellingly danced by Nyaniso Dzedze, also in South Africa.
I was lucky enough to see the film in Athens earlier in December, where it screened at the International Video Poetry Festival.
Poetry film festival news round-up
Poetry film festival season is now in full swing. Major festivals are just ’round the corner in Vienna, Berlin, Mexico City, and Athens.
First up is the biannual Art Visuals & Poetry Film Festival scheduled for 29 November to 1 December in Vienna. Though mainly a German-language event, this year it includes a special focus on the US-based production company Motionpoems.
Then it’s time for the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival in Berlin, whose full programme is now online. They sent along a press release, worth reproducing nearly in full due the central importance of this festival to the poetry film genre.
Once again, Berlin becomes the centre for the poetry film. From 5 to 8 December, the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival will for the 10th time be presenting the poetry film in all its facets in the Kino in der KulturBrauerei cinema. For the first time the current poetry film from Germany is the centre piece of the festival. Poetry film creation in the United Kingdom will be given a special spot in the limelight. The programme is now online. And Tickets go on advance sale in mid-November.
FESTIVAL OPENING
THU 5 Dec | 20.00 | Kino in der KulturBrauereiGuest of honour will be Jochen Kuhn, artist and film maker. A voice of contemporary German poetry, Özlem Özgül Dündar, is reading her latest poems. The music of the British and Berlin based multi-instrumentalist Rowan Coupland is often referring to poetry.
GERMANY-WIDE COMPETITION
Part 1: Yearned-For Places FRI 6 Dec | 19.30 (Repetition SAT 7 Dec | 14.30)
Part 2: Common Values SAT 7 Dec | 19.30. (Repetition SUN 8 Dec | 14.30)
all in Kino in der KulturBrauereiFrom more than 500 submissions from all over Germany the Programme Commission has chosen the best poetry films for the Competition. The international Jury of three will be awarding the prizes to the winning films at the awards ceremony on 8 December.
AWARD CEREMONY
SUN 8 Dec | 20.00 | Kino in der KulturBrauereiThe international Jury, comprising Jana Cernik (AG Kurzfilm), Charlotte Warsen (poet) and Tim Webb (filmmaker), will be awarding four prizes: the ZEBRA Prize for the Best Poetry Film, donated by the Haus für Poesie, the Goethe Film Prize, donated by the Goethe Institute, the Prize for the Best Film for Tolerance, donated by the German Foreign Ministry and the Ritter Sport Film Prize, donated by Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co. KG. Musical accompaniment for the evening will be provided by F.S. Blumm.
FOCUS UK
We Are Poets FRI. 6.12. | 5 pm
Very British FRI. 6.12. | 10 pm
State of the Art SAT. 7.12. | 5 pm
Stiff Upper Verse SAT. 7.12. | 10 pm
all in Kino in der KulturBrauereiThe country focus this year is on the United Kingdom. The programme ‘State of the Art’ shows the latest British productions, curated by the poets and film makers Chaucer Cameron, Helen Dewbery, Lucy English and Sarah Tremlett. The ‘Very British’ programme is a Best Of from the past few decades of the British poetry film. The documentary ‘We Are Poets’ by Daniel Lucchesi and Alex Ramseyer-Bache celebrates its German première at the festival. In ‘Stiff Upper Verse’ the British poets Simon Barraclough, Lucy English and Roseanne Watt will be reading in English, Welsh and the dialect of the Shetland Isles.
PRISM
Journey in the Mind FRI 6 Dec | 19.30
Transit SAT 7 Dec | 17.00
Parlour Games SAT 7 Dec | 19.30
Interrelations SAT 7 Dec | 22.00 | all in Kino in der KulturBrauereiThe Programme Commission has selected 35 films for Prism; three programmes present the broad spectrum of the German poetry film including animations, experimental films and features. The programme ‘Transit’ shows documentary portraits of poets.
NEW TALENTS
design akademie berlin & Hochschule Anhalt, Dessau FRI 6 Dec | 17.00
UdK Berlin & KHM Köln FRI 6 Dec | 22.00
HFBK Hamburg & Hochschule Düsseldorf SAT 7 Dec | 14.30
HFK Bremen & Hochschule Mainz SAT 7 Dec | 22.00
Bauhaus-Uni Weimar & HBK Braunschweig SUN 8 Dec | 16.00
all in Kino in der KulturBrauereiColloquium: The Eye of the Poem SUN 8 Dec | 11.00 | Haus für Poesie
Master Class: Between Film and Poetry FRI 6 Dec | 14.00 | Haus für PoesieThe poetry film is a popular genre at universities and film academies. Students at ten German higher education institutions will be showing poetry films made in the course of a collaboration over a year. In the Colloquium Anna Anders (UdK Berlin), Sophie Maintigneux (KHM Cologne), Ulrike Almut Sandig (poet), Tim Webb (Royal College of Art) and Sarah Tremlett (Liberated Words CIC) will be discussing the position of the poetry film in German and British higher education institutions. And the director Jochen Kuhn will be giving a poetry film master class.
FESTIVAL POEM: [native vegetation a natural resource]
SUN 8 Dec | 17.00 | Kino in der KulturBrauereiIn response to ZEBRA’s call for entries, film makers have submitted their film versions of this year’s festival poem, [dieses regionale getreide] ([native vegetation a natural resource]) by Daniel Falb. Film makers Zihrong Lu, Gruppe Leuchtstoff, Holger Mohaupt and Gabriele Nugara will present their film versions and be talking to the poet about poetry and film. You can read the poem on lyrikline.org.
WORD PICTURES – A ZEBRA NIGHT OF READINGS
FRI 6 Dec | 22.00 | Kino in der KulturBrauereiPoems by Özlem Özgül Dündar, Adrian Kasnitz, Ulrike Almut Sandig, Kathrin Schmidt and Raed Wahesh are the basis of this year’s films in the Competition and Prism. In the ZEBRA Night of Readings the poets will be reading their texts and talking to Alexander Gumz about making films based on poems.
PROGRAMM FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG POEPLE
Media Workshop: The Spirits We Conjured up
WED 4 Dec | 9.00 | Haus für Poesie
Sorcerer’s Apprentices in the Moor of Horror: Programme of Ballads
THU 5 Dec | 9.00 | Kino in der KulturBrauerei
Holes in the Head: Programme in Focus Language English
THU 5 Dec | 9.30 | Kino in der KulturBrauerei
I Made It Myself: Films by Children for Children
FRI 6 Dec | 9.00 | Kino in der KulturBrauerei
ZEBRINO Competition FRI 6 Dec | 9.00 | Kino in der KulturBrauerei
Poetry Workshop Writing Netflix! FRI 6 Dec | 9.00 | Haus für Poesie
Workshop Slam: Rucksack and a Journey FRI 6 Dec | 9.00 | Herder-GymnasiumThe Best Poetry Film for Children and Young People will be chosen by the young audience themselves in the ZEBRINO Competition. There will also be a colourful programme of workshops and films for Berlin schoolchildren with, among others, the Spoken Word artists Bas Böttcher and Nicole May.
As great as it is to see ZEBRA continuing to flourish, now to the point of becoming an annual festival, I’m equally excited to see a new poetry film festival springing up — in Mexico City. Check out FESTIVAL FOTOGENIA, I missed the call-out (sorry) but thanks to social media posts by filmmaker Helmie Stil, this didn’t escape my radar altogether. The description on their website suggests an avant-garde perspective on the genre:
FOTOGENIA, FIRST INTERNATIONAL FILM POETRY & DIVERGENT NARRATIVES FESTIVAL promotes a space with alternative conception of films, a celebration of experimentation and avant-garde framework, the love of curiosity and research of the seventh Art. Everyone is invited, taking into consideration the disruptive nature of the selected works.
We welcome you to watch films in another way!
If you are an audiovisual maker interested in provoking the cinematographic image through the exploration of the frontiers and limits of film narrative, genre, format and the nature of film itself, in order to converse with the viewers in innovative and critical ways to ignite a confrontation between reality and cinematic phenomenon, this is your place to exhibit your passion.
![The +Institute [for Experimental Arts] and Void Network present the 8th International Video Poetry Festival 2019](https://i0.wp.com/movingpoems.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Athans-video-poetry-2019-call-out-1024x630-640x394.jpg?resize=640%2C394)
Meanwhile in Athens, the International Video Poetry Festival will be held on the weekend of the 14th and 15th. (But submissions remain open until November 20!) Special events this year will include a screening of videopoems by my co-editor Marie Cravens as well as the touring program of videopoems from around the world that she’s pulled together, Poetry + Video, plus the Margaret Tait 100 program celebrating the first Scottish woman to make feature films, who was also a pioneer of poetry in film. And there will be a videopoetry seminar panel including film-makers, writers, performers, and musicians.
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a reminder that submissions are still open for REELpoetry/Houston TX 2020 (Deadline: December 9) and the 2020 Newlyn PZ International Film Festival (Deadline: February 24) .
August 2019 Update on Videopoetry/Poetry Film Events
Credit: Daniel R. Strebe, 15 August 2011, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Wild Whispers project at La Rue et Toi Festival Artistes
Belgium, 10 August 2019
See wildwhispers.blog.
Women of West Wales Unearthed: Poetry, Prose and Film
UK, 10 August 2019
See llangwmlitfest.eventcube.io/events/18635/women-of-west-wales-unearthed-poetry-prose-and-film.
Call for entries, Carmarthen Bay Film Festival, Poetic Cinema section
Wales, UK
Early bird deadline: 31 August 2019
Fee US $35 standard / US $20 student
Awards given but not specified on web page for this BAFTA Cymru/Wales qualifying festival.
See filmfreeway.com/CarmarthenBayFilmFestival.
Call for entries, Maldito Festival de Videopoesía 2019
Albacete, Spain
Deadline 8 September 2019
No fee specified on the website. Prize money is awarded. Films need to have Spanish subtitles.
See malditofestival.com/plazo-de-inscripcion-iii-edicion19.
Call for entries, 8th International Video Poetry Festival
Athens, Greece
Deadline: 20 November 2019
The festival suggests a voluntary fee of 5 euros by bank deposit.
See movingpoems.com/2019/08/call-for-work-8th-international-video-poetry-festival-athens-2019.
