~ CYCLOP ~
Poetry film festival news round-up
Current open calls for submission
Some upcoming deadlines:
- 2018 Film and Video Poetry Symposium (31 December)
- Light Up Poole (26 January)
- Newlyn Film Festival (31 January)
- Weimar Poetry Film Award (31 January)
Winners announced for VI CYCLOP International Poetry Film Festival
An email newsletter on Tuesday shared the results of the just-concluded festival in Kyiv, Ukraine:
Breaking News! ⚡
Yesterday, November 26, at the closure of the VI CYCLOP Videopoetry Festival at Port Creative Hub, the winners of the CYCLOP Videopoetry Contests were announced and summed up.
Time to announce winners!
🏅 Nomination «Debut» | Ukrainian program
Oleksandra Proms’ka «When the sun has long gone …» (Rivne)🏅 Nomination «Experiment» | Ukrainian program
Eugene Umanov «A rubber little ball» (Mykolayiv)🏆 Audience Award | International program
Radheya Jegatheva «iRony» (Australia)🏆 Audience Award | Ukrainian program
Eugene Vorozheykin «Lonely Man» (Kyiv)🥉 3rd place | Ukrainian program
Arsen Podosyan «It’s worth it?» (Odesa)🥈 2nd place | Ukrainian program
Eugene Vorozheykin «Lonely Man» (Kyiv)🥇 1st place | Ukrainian program
Olha Fraze-Frazenko «The blindworm» (Lviv)🥇 1st place | International program
Manuel Vilarinho «Calling All» (Portugal)Congratulations to the winners! :) 👏
Visit the CYLOP Facebook page for photos from the festival.
Cinema Poetica winners
This small festival debuted in Oregon in late October. I received an email from the director back on Nov. 18 and forgot to post it:
Kudos and congratulations! Cinema Poetica 2017 screened ten short poetry films at our first international festival. The ten films:
City of My Heart, Kostas Petsas, Greece (Grand Prize Winner)
Love’s River of Errors, Dave Richardson, U.S. (Audience Favorite)
Falling, Dave Bonta, U.S. (Finalist)
Spring on the Strand, AD Cooper, U.K. (Finalist)
Old Rain Temple, Kim Stafford, U.S.(Finalist)
Letter from Avostanis, Luca Fornasiero, Italy
Body Talk, Amy Bobeda, U.S.
Night Court, Erica Goss, U.S.
Love, Judith Barrington, U.S.
I’ve Never Felt this Way Before, Courtney Ross, U.S.All viewable at https://vimeo.com/album/4821195
Poetry film screening season is upon us!
Autumn is here, and with it the annual parade of poetry film festivals and screenings that do so much to expose new audiences to this still obscure hybrid genre. Many of the films shown in these events are yet not available to watch on the web (and some may never be), besides which most films do deserve to be seen on the big screen, so please try to support live events like these. Here’s a rather too brief run-down, including one that just concluded.
September 28-October 1: Festival Silêncio, Lisbon, “Isto Não é um Filme. É Um Poema” (That’s Not a Film. It’s a Poem) competition. Just in, here are the results:
NACIONAL
Prémio Especial do Júri Competição Nacional:
‘Dia’ de Rita QuelhasPrémio do PÚBLICO NACIONAL:
‘A Montanha’ de Pedro CaldeiraPrémio VENCEDOR NACIONAL
‘Running Man’ de Pedro Sena NunesINTERNACIONAL
Vencedor Internacional
‘Spree’ de Martin Kelly & Ian McBrydePrémio de Público Internacional
‘Vaccine’ de Kate Sweeney
October 7: Juteback Poetry Film Festival Fall Screening, Fort Collins, Colorado (USA). There’s an annotated list of the films on their website.
October 13: My Eyes Like Rays: National Poetry Competition Filmpoem screening & poetry reading, Poetry Cafe, London (UK). “Filmpoem makers James William Norton, Helmie Stil and Sarah Tremlett will screen all ten NPC films.” I’m glad the Poetry Society is still promoting poetry films, and I hope to be able to share some of them when they’re released to the web.
October 15: 5th Ó Bhéal Poetry-Film Competition screening, Cork (Ireland). Click the foregoing link for the shortlist as well as time and place details.
October 21: Rabbit Heart Poetry film Festival, Worcester, Massachusetts (USA). Here are the 2017 shortlists. (That’s right, they have more than one. And if you think some of them are actually rather long, you should see the longlist. This year they received over 350 submissions from 41 countries!) And here’s the trailer.
October 28: Filmpoem Festival 2017, Lewes, East Sussex (UK). A few more details about the event are on Facebook.
October 28: Cinema Poetica, Ashland, Oregon (USA)
November 9-11: Art Visuals & Poetry Film Festival, Vienna (Austria). Click through and use the drop-down menus to peruse the programs for the multiple components of this supremely well-organized event — now the second largest poetry film festival in the world, with 82 films screening over three days. Here’s the trailer.
November 25-26: 6th CYCLOP Poetry Film Festival, Kiev (Ukraine). The submissions period just closed, so I’m guessing it will be a few weeks until the shortlist is released.
Call for work: 6th CYCLOP International Poetry Film Contest
On August 1, it was announced that the 6th CYCLOP Poetry Film Festival will be held on November 25-26, 2017 in Kyiv (Kiev), Ukraine. Filmmakers have until Sept. 30 to submit work. Visit their website for the rules and regulations, which I’ll also paste in below:
- Films of up to 10 minutes duration that are no more than two years old (January 2015) may be entered.
- There are no limitation about subject and language restrictions. All films that are not in English must have English subtitles. Each application must also contain the text of the verse in English.
- Video can be performed in any techniques using any necessary equipment (video, animation, flash etc).
- Each video should be placed on the Youtube channel in free access.
- By sending your film, you confirm that the film may be shown at the CYCLOP Poetry Film Festival. The artist must have all property and screening rights.
- Each artist can’t send more than two videos.
- All videos must be sent with the following characteristics:
File format: .MOV or .AVI.
Standard: PAL. Codec: H264.
Resolution: HD — 1920 x 1080 or 1280 x 720 (16:9) / SD — 640 x 480 (4:3) or 640 x 360 (16:9)
Click through for the entry form, names of the jury members, timeline for scoring and other information.
Upcoming videopoetry and poetry film festivals
Book your tickets! The annual autumn parade of poetry film festivals is about to begin. Some calls are still open: for the Vienna, Ó Bhéal and CYCLOP festivals (see below), and for the as-yet-unscheduled 5th Sadho Poetry Film Fest (deadline: October 30) and International Film Poetry Festival in Athens (deadline: November 20). And don’t forget that submissions to Zata Banks’ PoetryFilm screenings series never close.
September 15-19, Vilnius, Lithuania
TARP Audiovisual Poetry Festival 10: INTER-states
This year‘s special touch – audiozine, which will see poets Dainius Gintalas, Laima Kreivytė, Marius Burokas, Benediktas Januševičius, Agnė Žagrakalytė and others being recorded reading poetry in their favourite settings.
The last day of the festival TARP 10 will be dedicated to TARP academy, together with video poetry researchers Sarah Lucas and Lucy English from Great Britain, andan open discussion with the festival guests. The closing of the festival will be crowned as usual by an open mic readings and the opening of the „INTER-states“ exhibition – because it is just the festival that will end, while poetic states will flutter in the air for long afterwards.
September 30, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Big Bridges Film Festival
Mark your calendar for September 30, 2015 when we will reveal the winners of the Big Bridges Film Contest! The event, hosted by MotionPoems and the Target Studio at the Weisman Art Museum, will include a special screening of selected films from the contest. All are welcome!
More details coming soon at www.BigBridgesWAM.com!
October 4-11, Cork, Ireland
Ó Bhéal @ IndieCork Film Festival
→ Submissions open until September 15
This is Ó Bhéal’s sixth year of screening poetry-films (or video-poems) and the third year featuring an International competition.
Up to thirty films will be shortlisted and screened during the festival, from 4th-11th October 2015.
October 10-11, Worcester, MA, USA
Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival
Rabbit Heart 2015 will once again be at the delightful Nick’s Bar in Worcester, MA! This year there will be two shows–
Showcase Matinee – Saturday, October 10th 12-3pm
Join us for lunch, and check out some of the fantastic material that we wish we had time to share at the awards ceremony (we got SO many good entries this year!) We will screen the best of the best that didn’t fall into prize categories, as well as curated showcases from renowned UK archivist Zata Banks of PoetryFilm. Watch this space for more information on the individual showcases.Awards Ceremony and Viewing Party – Sunday, October 11th 8pm (doors at 7:30)
The show you’ve been waiting all year for – the best of the best, the handing out of trophies, popcorn and fancy dresses, and your lovely emcees Tony Brown and Melissa Mitchell! Come meet your judges and cheer for your finalists – and see who takes home the sparkle-hearted bunny for Best Overall Production.
October 17, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Visible Verse 2015 Festival
Presented by The Cinematheque since 2000, Visible Verse is one of the longest-running video poetry festivals in the world. Video poetry is a hybrid creative form bringing together verse and moving images. Visible Verse selects its annual program from hundreds of submissions received from local, national, and international artists.
On the occasion of the 2015 festival, The Cinematheque says a fond farewell and expresses its great gratitude to Heather Haley, founder of Visible Verse and its curator and host from 2000 to 2014. We welcome Vancouver poet Ray Hsu into his new role as Visible Verse’s artistic director.
November 20 and 22, Kyiv, Ukraine
5th CYCLOP International Videopoetry Festival
→ Submissions open until September 30
The festival programme features video poetry-related lectures, workshops, round tables, discussions, presentations of international contests and festivals, as well as a demonstration of the best examples of Ukrainian and world videopoetry, a competitive program, an awards ceremony and other related projects.
December 5-6, Vienna, Austria
Poetry Filmfestival Vienna (AKA Art Visuals & Poetry Festival)
→ Submissions from German-speaking countries open until September 15
After an inspiring Poetry Film Festival in 2014 we are happy to go on in 2015. What´s new in 2015? We found a new festival location in middle of city center. Metro Kinokulturhaus. It’s one the most beautiful cinemas in Vienna and the result of a new cooperation with Filmarchiv Austria.
Call for submissions: 5th CYCLOP International Videopoetry Festival
CYCLOP, the videopoetry festival in Kyiv, Ukraine, has been running every November since 2011. “The festival programme features video poetry-related lectures, workshops, round tables, discussions, presentations of international contests and festivals, as well as a demonstration of the best examples of Ukrainian and world videopoetry, a competitive program, an awards ceremony and other related projects.” For the 2015 festival, they’ve brought in a panel of international jurors for a new contest for international poetry films.
5th CYCLOP International Videopoetry Contest
1 August — 30 September 2015Rules and regulations:
- Films of up to 10 minutes duration that are no more than two years old (January 2013) may be entered.
- There are no limitation about subject and language restrictions. All films that are not in English must have English subtitles.
- Video can be performed in any techniques using any necessary equipment (video, animation, flash etc).
- By sending your film, you confirm that the film may be shown at the CYCLOP Videopoetry Festival. The artist must have all property and screening rights.
- Each artist can send more than one work.
- All videos must be sent with the following characteristics:
File format: .MOV or .AVI.
Standard: PAL. Codec: H264.
Resolution: HD — 1920 x 1080 or 1280 x 720 (16:9) / SD — 640 x 480 (4:3) or 640 x 360 (16:9)The closing date for entries is 30 September 2015.
All entrants will be informed by e-mail of the results of the call for entries from Oktober 2015 on. Please make sure that your e-mail address is correct.
Click through to the CYCLOP website for the entry form. They also have a Facebook page.
Як вишні / As cherries by Olena Huseynova
Dariia Kuzmych directed, animated and edited this videopoem with poetry by Olena Huseynova and music by Heinali. It won first prize in the main competition at CYCLOP 2014.
See the CYCLOP-2014 playlist on YouTube, currently at 30 videos, for more Ukrainian poetry films, many of them with English subtitles. With the Western news media always focusing on conflict in Ukraine, it’s easy to lose sight of the country’s rich and complex culture. Watching these bilingual videopoems offers a glimpse into the way Ukrainian people think, what they value and what they dream about. Plus, they’re just very good films.
Кафка / Kafka by Kyrylo Polischuk
Kyrylo Polischuk (Pol Ischuk) composed the music and text, and Viktoria Netrebenko is credited with the idea and editing of this Ukrainian videopoem. It took 2nd place in the main competition at CYCLOP 2014.
Взрослеют / Growing Up by Ksana Kovalenko
A quirky, disturbing stop-motion animation by Eugene Tsymbalyuk with text and narration by Ukrainian poet Ksana Kovalenko. Denis Chernysh was the director of photography, and the actors are Victoria Klyosova and Roman Nemtsov. This was the third-place winner in the general competition at CYCLOP 2014.
Tsymbalyuk offers this synopsis in the description at Vimeo:
“Growing up” is an associative video, made under the impression of the short poem. It’s a story about growing up by pain. It’s about the ability to except the inevitable and to gain experience, when the treacherous knife in your spine turns out to be a key able to open new doors for you.
4th CYCLOP Videopoetry Festival program online
We received the following press release from CYCLOP organizer Polina Horodyska:
21 to 23 November, 2014, in Kyiv the 4th CYCLOP Videopoetry Festival will be held. The program features video-visual poetry related lectures, workshops, round tables, discussions, presentations of international contests and festivals, as well as a demonstration of the best examples of Ukrainian and world poetry films, competitive program, awarding ceremony and other interesting intermediary projects.
This year lectures are devoted to the birth of the concept, experience of poetry film creation, visual component of literary projects, and videopoetry in cinematic discourse. At Saturday’s showing, you can watch the best examples of new Ukrainian videopoetry. On Sunday, we will show the unique festival video of international contests. You will also have an opportunity to watch the 1st ‘Videopoetry Laboratory’ findings and take part in their discussion, and to visit an incredible poetic-musical-visual «rozdilovi» performance prepared for the fest by «ArtPole» creative agency…
The International Poetry Film Festival’s selection will be shown on November 23, Sunday, at 12:00 – 16:30.
The program for the international screening, organized by cooperating film festival, is very international indeed. I was impressed by how many different festivals they’re working with: VideoBardo in Argentina; AVaspo in Vilnius; Liberated Words in Bristol; KHM Cologne & Kunststiftung NRW in Berlin; Rabbit Heart in Worcestor, Massachusetts; Ó Bhéal in Cork; and ZEBRA in Berlin. Click through for the complete list of films and filmmakers.
CYCLOP International Videopoetry Festival in Kiev
The 3rd annual CYCLOP International Videopoetry Festival is coming up on November 16 and 17 in Kiev, Ukraine. For a description in English, see this very informative slideshow. They have a number of partners and media sponsors; it looks like a pretty major event. The focus is on contemporary Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian authors, and they hold a competition “to draw attention to Videopoetry as a phenomenon and a separate art form.” Last year they also showed selections from the Argentine videopoetry festival VideoBardo, the German ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, and Brooklyn’s International Literary Film Festival.
Here’s the 1st Place and People’s Choice Award winner from 2012, “1 + 1 = 1,” directed by Kalinichenko Xenia using a text by Mary Teymurazyan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh1XU1bwKEk#t=122
Scroll down the CYCLOP webpage for many more videos.
