The Vienna-based Art Visuals & Poetry Film Festival 2017 is 11 months away, but they’ve already issued a call for submissions. The deadline is March 30. Here’s the English-language version of their call. Note that the primary focus of the festival is on German-language films, but, they say,

we will increase the amount of international film screenings by adding another festival day. It will be a single day for international films. These films will be chosen by curators within a network of European poetry film festivals.

MAIN COMPETITION Please be aware: We can only accept competition entries from German speaking countries (residency or nationality) for the main competition. German language in the films is wanted. Exceptions will be made, when the literature shorts show an outstanding quality and offer German subtitles.

INTERNATIONAL AWARD We know, that there is a great interest from the international community to participate. Therefore we have created a second competition called „SPECIAL AWARD“  after a given festival poem. This competition is open to film makers from all over the world. For the next Poetry Film Festival we have chosen a love poem from Rainer Maria Rilke. It is called „To Lou Andre Salome“. The poem was written in 1911. You can download the spoken version of Rainer Maria Rilkes’ „Tou Lou Andre Salome“ in German for free. We also provide you with a licensed English translation of the festival poem under creative commons. It’s very interesting, that this kind of competition attracts many professionals who like to experience different versions of films based on the same text. On the other hand, it offers people a easy chance to make their first poetry movie in their life.

SIDE PROGRAM Beside the competition screenings we will offer an international film program in co-operation with selected curators, talks, poetry readings and a multimedia performance. Please keep in touch with us to find out more about the festival program.

CURATORS & JURY The Art Visuals & Poetry Filmfestival in Vienna is directed by Sigrun Höllrigl. Hubert Sielecki supports her as a curator. Beside there will be an independent competition jury selecting the winner films and honorable mentions.

PRIZES There will be two prizes for the winners. The prize-money will be fixed with our partners and sponsors. I can not go into details. Due to a major change in art funding in Austria, we will know the results very late this time – it means appr. 4 months before the festival start. We now plan to award the best film of both competition with a cash prize.

FESTIVAL Selected films will be presented in curated programs during the Art Visuals & Poetry Filmfestival Nov 9-11, 2017 in Vienna. We will let you know our program over the website.Beside the festival we organize poetry film screenings with other partners. Please let us know, if you want to be part of it.

SUBMISSIONS  Competition deadline is March 30, 2017. The screening copies of the selected film makers should arrive until June 30, 2017. You can submit by following this link and by filling in this online submission form. For all platform users of filmfreeway and festhome there’s an entrance fee of 15 Euro to cover the efforts selecting the specific poetry films among the submitted films.  Please read carefully the guidelines! We are a Poetry Film Festival!  We only take literature & poetry films either from German speaking countries or poetry films dedicated to the given Rilke poem of the festival.

CONDITIONS OF PARTICIPATION /  GUIDELINES & RULES / Deadline for entries March 30, 2017

For a successful participation these rules need to be followed:

-The submitted literary short film or poetry film has a length of 2 until 20 minutes max. and is based on a literary short text or poem.
-EITHER: The film maker or director has an Austrian, German or Swiss passport or residency. Further international collaborations (composer, writer) in the team are welcomed. OR for the second competition: The film is based on our festival poem from Rainer Maria Rilke. You can make a new recording based on the German original text or use the voice recording we offer. Remixes of the existing voice over are allowed.
– The film is not older than 10 years (2007).
– The film has not been submitted before.
– ART VISUALS & POETRY is granted the right to screen the film in the context of the competition and the festival.
– The application and copyright declaration arrive in time. Deadline is March 30, 2017. We prefer a sighting via internet link (password protected, vimeo, You Tube, dropbox). You can onpass additional film information via e-mail: office@poetry.or.at
– SCREENING FORMAT:  We only accept films in the following formats: mov or mp4 File, H264, Sound uncompressed, 48 000 kHz, 16 bit. The films will be converted into DCP format.

We wish you good luck & happy work!

Sigrun Höllrigl, your festival directrice & her team