~ Zata Kitowski ~
Deadlines approach for Filmpoem Festival, ‘Bring a Poem to Life’ competition, and Rabbit Heart
Two calls for work previously announced here are closing in early May, while a third stays open until July 1, allowing a little more time for procrastinators (in whose company I proudly include myself). Those submission deadlines:
- May 1: Filmpoem Festival Fifteen
- May 5: “Bring a Poem to Life” competition for UK secondary school students
- July 1: 2015 Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival
In the much longer term, submissions to Carbon Culture‘s $1000 poetry film prize are open until January 1. But there’s been a little more information about it since I originally posted their call:
Zata Kitowski, director of PoetryFilm, will pick the grand prize winner and finalists. The winning entry will receive $1,000.00. The top five entries will receive high-profile placements across a number of networks, note in a one page ad alongside honorable mentions in our newsstand print and device editions. All entries are considered for sponsored entry to our list of film festivals and poetry film festivals.
And speaking of Zata Banks (née Kitowski), it’s worth pointing out that submissions to PoetryFilm never close — there’s no deadline whatsoever. Which does put us procrastinators in a bit of a bind.
April poetry film events in the UK, Germany, Quebec and Greece
Back on March 7, I posted a list of poetry-film screenings and festivals for the spring in which I lamented the apparent lack of events in April. Since then, I’ve learned about quite a few, thanks to web and Facebook postings from Zata Banks (nee Kitowski), Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel, and Helen Dewbery.
11 April in Swindon, UK
Poetry Film Workshop with Chaucer Cameron and Helen Dewbery. According to the Facebook event page, there were only eight places available as of March 22, so don’t delay if you’re interested in signing up.
The objective is for participants to create a poetry film.
Part One: Short introduction on the history of film poetry with examples.
Part Two: Exercises using sound, words and images.
Part Three: Creating a film poem using newly created poetry and images.
Equipment: participants bring their own laptop, camera/phone if they have them.
With permission, and if suitable, the films will be shown at this year’s Poetry Swindon Festival in the Central Library on National Poetry Day (1st October 2015)
17 April in Hawick, Scotland
TRANSMUTATIONS programme at Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival.
Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival and Zata Kitowski from PoetryFilm have co-curated this special screening, mixing films from our open submissions with classics of the genre. It features a diverse selection of film artworks, chosen for their alignment with poetry, with poetic structures, with poetic experiences, and with the visual, verbal and aural languages of poetry in various forms. The 45 minute screening will be followed by a 15 minute Q&A with some of the filmmakers, including Richard Bailey (USA) and Sean Martin (UK).
20-24 April in Münster
Poetry Film – Seminar mit Daniel Huhn & Julian Isfort. It’s great to see these workshops cropping up. This one, sponsored by Filmwerkstatt Münster, sounds very intensive, a five-day-long seminar with basic filmmaking knowledge recommended for participants.
22 April in Münster
Best of ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival 2014: HEIMATKLÄNGE. The first of three events presented by Filmwerkstatt Münster in the Palace Theatre, each consisting of two, 45-minute screenings on a given theme, compiled and moderated by the ZEBRA program director Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel. (The others are on 29 April—see below—and May 6.) The description for the first one reads:
Der deutschsprachige Raum ist bekannt für seine mannigfaltige Dichtkunst. Konkrete, Digitale und Lautpoesie, Naturlyrik oder Lieder beweisen: Die Varianten sind schier unbegrenzt.
23 April – 5 July in Montreal
Carrefour Vidéo-poétique. A very cool-sounding video installation featuring videopoems from Québec and the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival.
The Goethe-Institut and Vidéographe are pleased to collaborate on Carrefour vidéo-poétique, a video installation presented in the windows of the Goethe-Institut from April 23 to July 5, every evening from sunset to midnight.
This presentation of video-poems aims to offer a fresh perspective and a new way of hearing contemporary poetry, in addition to innovating on how it’s disseminated: Video becomes a new means of spreading the word, thereby making poetry accessible to the general public.
24-26 April in Athens
PoetryFilm programme on body and gender identity at sound acts.
sound acts will be the first such event in Greece, introducing the athenian audience to work not frequently seen and hopefully opening a dialogue about gender and identity politics within sound production.
25-26 in Wenlock, UK.
PoetryFilm at the Wenlock Poetry Festival
For the Wenlock Poetry Festival, PoetryFilm is contributing a curated programme of ten short poetry films, which will be played on a loop at The Edge cinema venue. A real festival first!
29 April in Münster
Best of ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival 2014: TANZREIME.
Tanz und Musik schwingen im Dreiklang mit der Lyrik. Moderne Rhythmen interpretieren bekannte Gedichte, ausdrucksstarke Tänze und Performances vermitteln uns die geballte Kraft der Sprache.
Upcoming PoetryFilm screenings in Scotland and Greece
In last week’s round-up of poetry film and videopoetry screenings planned for this spring, I lamented that there didn’t seem to be anything on the calendar for April yet. Fortunately that’s no longer the case. Zata Kitowski has announced two screenings on tap for next month, and each sounds very interesting: Transmutations: PoetryFilm / Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival, 16-19 April 2015; and PoetryFilm in Athens, 24-26 April 2015. The former will feature
a diverse selection of film artworks, chosen for their alignment with poetry, with poetic structures, with poetic experiences, and with the visual, verbal and aural languages of poetry in various forms. The 45 minute screening will be followed by a 15 minute Q&A with some of the filmmakers, including Richard Bailey (USA) and Sean Martin (UK).
The Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival will take place 16-19 April 2015 in Hawick, Scotland, UK.
Click through to the PoetryFilm post for a very complete description of the program.
As for the Athens screening,
PoetryFilm will be contributing a special programme of poetry films focusing on the body and gender/identity to the sound acts event in Athens in April 2015.
Visit the sound acts website for more about this unique-sounding festival.
Conference on poetry, film and technology at FACT: three views
I was happy to see a comprehensive, 17-page report [PDF] on the Feb 5 Send and Receive conference about “Poetry, Film and Technology in the 21st Century” at FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) from the poet John Davies, A.K.A. Shedman. His highly literate and personal take on the conference gives one a good sense of the sorts of issues under discussion and the often conflicting opinions of the participants. Davies also did his own research on poetry film to flesh out the article, which he titled “Send and Receive: misaligned model or magnificent mix?” It concludes with a brief description of each film shown. Check it out.
Davies includes his reactions to two presentations that are also online. Zata Kitowski has posted her talk [PDF] on the semiotics of poetry film at the PoetryFilm website. And while it doesn’t relate to poetry film per se, George Szirtes’ presentation on how he uses Twitter and Facebook to draft poems is nevertheless very interesting, and may be read on his blog (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4).
Szirtes also shared some informal reactions to the conference, including the poetry films, in a post on Facebook that’s fully public (i.e., you don’t have to be a Facebook friend of a friend, or even a logged-in user, to read it). Although his assessment of the films was a bit less critical than Davies’, they agreed on which was the stand-out: Dream Poem by Danny Caswell Dann Casswell. “The Dream Poem won it for me, because the idea of the poem was the idea of the film—the one was the other,” Szirtes writes. And Davies called it “superb – witty, clever but thoughtful animation that played with the media. A true poetry film with the right mix and balance.” Unfortunately, I can’t find any trace of this film on the web. Hopefully that will change at some point. It’s available to view on the PoetryFilm site.
Zata Kitowski interviewed at A Younger Theatre and Write Out Loud
Two recent interviews with the founder and curator of the UK-based PoetryFilm project together serve as a good introduction to Zata Kitowski’s basic philosophy and priorities. In an interview with Frances Spurrier for Write Out Loud, “‘Separating and combining the senses’: the art of the poetry film,” she shows herself to have very broad tastes, while expressing a preference for what has become almost an orthodoxy in poetry-film, filmpoem and videopoetry circles:
How would you define the relation of the poem to the film and vice versa?
The question implies that there is a separation between the poem and the film. Some poetry films are created from the outset as a cohesive poetry film so in this way there is no separation. If the artwork did begin with a poem at the start of the creative process, or with a film, then there are various integration approaches. Duplicating the visual, verbal and aural content is a popular obvious interpretation; however, in my opinion, contrasting different elements is more powerful, playing with the presence and or absence of words, images and sounds. The poetry film art form is a fertile and creative area to explore, and the project celebrates many different approaches, both separating the senses and combining the senses.
A feature article by Heather Kincaid in A Younger Theatre takes the long view, “Celebrating Creativity – Twelve Years of PoetryFilm.” I was especially interested in what Kitowski had to say about the audience for PoetryFilm events:
“We have a really diverse audience,” said Kitowksi. “People come from poetic and literary spheres, as well as from film and artistic circles. I think this diversity is partly influenced by where we hold events – so we might exhibit work at a cinema or film festival, in an art gallery, or at a literary festival. The response from audiences has been very positive both in the UK and abroad.”
Judging by the fact that her latest event, PoetryFilm Solstice at the ICA in London, sold out a day in advance, I’d say the response is very positive indeed. Even though my own approach at Moving Poems is to pull in fans of film and poetry with the lure of free web videos, I recognize that seeing films in a theater or art gallery is a wholly different—and generally much more immersive—experience, and having a knowledgeable guide to interpret each film really adds value as well. And as a poet, I love the idea of getting people to pay real money to go hear and see poetry. So here’s wishing PoetryFilm many more years of success.
Athens International Film Poetry Festival set for Nov. 28; tickets on sale for PoetryFilm Solstice
We have updates on two poetry film festivals this week. The International Film Poetry Festival in Athens, which had previously been advertised as coming some time in December, is in fact going to take place next Friday, November 28, according to its website:
The yearly International Film Poetry Festival will be held for third time in Greece on Friday 28/11/2014 2014 in Athens. Approximately 1000 people attended the festival last year.
There will be two different zones of the festival. The first zone will include video poems, visual poems, short film poems and cinematic poetry by artists from all over the world (America, Asia, Europe, Africa). The second zone will include cross-platform collaborations of sound producers and music groups with poets and visual artists in live improvisations.
The International Film Poetry Festival 2014 attempts to create an open public space for the creative expression of all tendencies and streams of contemporary visual poetry.
It is very important to notice that this festival is a part of the counter-culture activities of Void Network and + the Institute [for Experimental Arts] and will be non-sponsored, free entrance, non commercial and non profit event. The festival will cover the costs (2000 posters, 15.000 flyers, high quality technical equipment e.t.c.) from the incomes of the bar of the festival.
Etc.
For those of you who prefer a bit of advanced planning in your lives, tickets are on sale for PoetryFilm’s last event of 2014 at the ICA Cinema in London:
PoetryFilm Solstice
21 Dec 2014
3:00 pm | Cinema 1 | £7.00 to £11.00“Founded by artist Zata Kitowski over a decade ago, the PoetryFilm art project continues to play with the avant-garde” – aqnb, 2014
PoetryFilm celebrates experimental poetryfilms, art films, text films, sound films, silent films, poet-filmmaker collaborations, auteur films, films based on poems, poems based on films, and other avant-garde text/image/sound screening and performance material.
The PoetryFilm project has resulted in over 60 events at cinemas, galleries, literary festivals and academic institutions featuring films, poetry readings, live performances and talks. PoetryFilm Solstice will feature a programme of short poetryfilms and live performances curated by Zata Kitowski – the full programme will be posted here shortly.
PoetryFilm is supported by Arts Council England.
“Shot Through the Heart”: a poetry film competition from Southbank Centre
London’s Southbank Centre is holding a love-themed poetry film competition with Alastair Cook, Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel and Malgorzata Kitowski as judges.
Shot Through the Heart – Southbank Centre Poetry Film Competition
Friday 14 February – Friday 30 May
Calling all poets and filmmakers! Love is in the air at Southbank Centre and we want you to create poetry films that explore the joy of first love, the pain of lost love, the confusion of displaced love, the purity of platonic love, or any other kind of love.
There are two categories to enter:
Poetry films on the theme of love made for adults
Poetry films on the theme of love made for children (under 12)
Throughout the summer, Southbank Centre’s celebrates the Festival of Love. Our biennial Poetry International festival (17 – 24 July 2014) explores many different themes including the various ways in which love can impact on writers’ lives. Poetry film will be a major part of this year’s Poetry International.
A poetry film can be many different things, as Alastair Cook, Filmmaker and Director of Filmpoem Festival in Dunbar, explains –
‘A poetry film is… a single entwined entity, a melting, a cleaving together of words, sound and vision. It is an attempt to take a poem and present it through a medium that will create a new artwork, separate from the original poem.’
Dates:
Shot Through the Heart Competition opens: Friday 14 February 2014 at 12noon
Shot Through the Heart Competition closes: Friday 30 May 2014 at 6pm
Prizes:
Southbank Centre is very keen that each submission is seen as a collaborative artwork between poet and filmmaker, so this prize is awarded jointly to the winning poet and filmmaker in each category. Poems must be by living poets and follow the copyright guidance and rules here.
Poetry films made for adults:
• Shortlisted films will be shown in Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, on Friday 18 July 2014 and all shortlisted filmmakers will be invited to the screening. The winner and a runner-up will be announced on the night.
• The winning film will receive £500 to be shared between poet and filmmaker as well as a pair of tickets each to Poetry International’s Gala Reading.
• The runner-up poet and filmmaker will receive a pair of tickets each to Poetry International’s Gala Reading.
Poetry films made for children:
• Shortlisted films will be shown in The Clore Ballroom at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre on Saturday 19 July 2014. The winner and runner-up will be announced on the night.
• The winning children’s film will receive £500 to be shared between poet and filmmaker as well as a pair of tickets each to Poetry International’s Gala Reading.
• The winning film will also be shown in Imagine Children’s Festival 2015 headlining a children’s poetry film event – this is one of our busiest festivals, attracting thousands of audience members every year.
• Both winning films will be shown at 2014’s ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival in Berlin.
