About
PoetryFilm is the research art project founded by Zata Banks in 2002 to celebrate experimental poetry film artworks, and to explore the semiotics of combining various modes such as text, image, and sound.
Since 2002, PoetryFilm has attracted one thousand contributions from around the world, and one hundred events have taken place at cinemas, galleries, literary festivals and academic institutions such as Tate Britain, The ICA, Southbank Centre, Cannes Film Festival, CCCB Barcelona, O Miami, Freud Museum London, and Curzon Cinemas.
Lectures about PoetryFilm include sessions for MA Creative Writing (Warwick University), MA Filmmaking (National Film & Television School), MA Visual Communication (Royal College of Art), and BA Graphic Design (University of Lincoln).
Zata Banks has judged poetry film prizes for the Southbank Centre (London), Zebra Festival (Berlin), CYCLOP Video Poetry Festival (Kiev, Ukraine), Apples & Snakes poetry organisation (UK), Bokeh Yeah film group (Manchester, UK) and Carbon Culture Review art+literature+technology journal (USA).
In 2014, Arts Council England funded the cataloguing of the entire PoetryFilm Archive, and in 2015 Zata Banks contributed a presentation about this archive to an AHRC-funded conference at Leeds University.
PoetryFilm is one of the British Council’s listed Experimental Film organisations.
“The cult PoetryFilm night is the only UK platform for the creative but very much un-mined field of poetry film. The PoetryFilm movement led by Zata [Banks] is forging new cinematic expressions: an innovative cinema of poetry, and a language of poetry film.” – Genesis Cinema, July 2005
“Founded by artist Zata [Banks] over a decade ago, the PoetryFilm art project continues to play with the avant-garde.” – AQNB magazine, 2014
“As part of the BFI’s LOVE season, the peerless PoetryFilm is back with a vengeance next week.”
“Carbon Culture, in association with Zata Banks from the evergreen PoetryFilm project – have created an award that celebrates cinema at the intersection of image-practice and literature.” – Conclave Magazine, December 2015
“A great event – one of the most interesting and invigorating I have been to this year!” – Arts Council England, 2014
“Recent signs of poetic cine-literacy include Zata [Banks’] PoetryFilm nights” – Oxford Handbook of Contemporary British and Irish Poetry, Oxford University Press, 2014
“Zata [Banks’] regular London screenings have become something of a cult attraction to independent film-buffs and poetry-fans alike.” – Battersea Arts Centre, May 2005
“PoetryFilm is opening up the barriers between the arts” – Inscribe Writers, February 2014
PoetryFilm 