Poets, musicians and filmmakers from all over the world converged on a converted packing house in Antwerp, Belgium last Saturday for a day of gorging on film-poems. It was glorious.
While last year in Dunbar, Scotland had an element of novelty on its side, this year was carefully structured to up the ante. A group of Dutch and Flemish film-poem artists presented their work, along with the debut screening of the UK National Poetry Competition film-poems, Absent Voices films, conversations with poets in response film-poems of their work that they had just seen, and even live performances of voice and music in accompaniment to film. The scope, variety, and innovation was impressive, not to mention the roster of heavy-hitters in both the poetry and film genres.
Organiser Alastair Cook emphasised the point that the film-poem genre is an inclusive and encouraging one--suggesting that we all start somewhere, even if with the video facility on our smart phones, and start making film-poems. Particularly helpful in that regard was the first screening, an introduction to the film-poem. Luckily, most of the works that Alastair picked to illustrate the depth and range of this genre are also available online. What follows, below, are those films (recommended to view in full-screen mode).
Watch. Enjoy. Make film-poems. Perhaps I'll see you at a film-poem festival soon.
Four Years From Now Walking With My Daughter
Who'd have thought
How to be a Poet
repeaT
repeaT - Polarbear on YouTube.
The Royal Oak
The Royal Oak from Sandra Salter on Vimeo.
Racing Time
Racing Time from Adele Myers on Vimeo.
Balada Catalana
Balada Catalana from Laen Sanches on Vimeo.