PoetryFilm is a research art project founded by Zata Banks in 2002, celebrating and exploring poetry films and other text/image/sound material. Since 2002, PoetryFilm has presented over 60 events at venues including Tate Britain, The ICA, FACT Liverpool, Cannes Film Festival, CCCB Barcelona, O Miami, The Royal College of Art, Curzon Cinemas. Zata has judged poetry film prizes for the Southbank Centre, Zebra Festival in Berlin, Carbon Culture Review in America, and Apples & Snakes in the UK. PoetryFilm is supported by Arts Council England, and is an accredited member of Film Hub London, part of the BFI Audience Network. The PoetryFilm Archive welcomes submissions all year round.

Transmutations

Venue: Tower Mill, Heart of Hawick
Tickets: £4
Screening date: Fri 17 April
Screening time: 5.10pm

All films in this programme (ordered alphabetically by title):

AFTERLIGHT

Timothy David Orme /United States/2013/00:03:00/

Afterlight is a short hand made film that explores both one’s inherent darkness and one’s inherent lightness. Every frame was made with charcoal on paper (sometimes each frame was drawn up to eight times) and then composited digitally.

Biography/Filmography:

Timothy David Orme is a writer, filmmaker, and animator. His two books of poems, Catalogue of Burnt Text, and his second book, Oponearth, are available through BlazeVOX Books. His films have won international awards and shown at film festivals all over the world They are available (when possible) right here on this website. Tim has also worked in television as both a camera operator, writer, director, animator, and public service announcement producer.

http://www.timothydavidorme.com/Afterlight

DREAM POEM

Dann Casswell /United Kingdom/2005/00:01:30/

In dreams it’s impossible to read the same thing twice and not have it change on you. In 2006 I made this poem from the perspective of someone who is having a fitful night’s sleep and is worried about their relationship, about loneliness, about death. The film was once played for the Sultan of Brunei, whose daughter is dyslexic. He actually sent me a sword to say thank you. It was all very strange. I still love it dearly, so I hope you enjoy it as much as the Sultan did. Please don’t send me any more swords.

Biography/Filmography:

Since creating Dream Poem in 2006, Dann Casswell has worked full-time for the BBC on local radio, for BBC Children in Need and organising creative BBC Outreach projects in his home town of Bristol. He has had work published in various short story outlets and has had work commissioned by BBC Radio 4. Dann is now a director of CreativeConnection.co.uk where he works running the animation channel, writing, producing and directing beautiful short films and high-end communications for corporate and charity clients.

https://poetryfilm.org/2014/08/19/poetryfilm-archive-dream-poem-by-dann-casswell/

EVERYTHING MAKES LOVE WITH THE SILENCE

Hernan Talavera, 3 poems by Alejandra Pizarnik/Spain/2013/00:02:34/

Biography/Filmography:

Hernán Talavera has a degree in Fine Arts. He experiments with the visual and poetic possibilities of the environment in search of dreams and intimate images. During his training he studied with artists including Tony Conrad, Carsten Nicolai (Alva Noto), José Luis Guerin, Llorenç Barber and Antonio López. His work has been recognised with awards including the prize for the best piece of video art (Rendibú), the Plató Digital Award (Abycine) or the Special Jury Prize for Best Screenplay (Independent and Fantastic Film, Toledo). His work has been exhibited at events including the Athens International Video Art Festival (Greece), the Internationales Videofestival Bochum (Germany), the Mostra Internazionale del Cortometraggio Montecatini (Italy) and The International Drawing Project in Kulturmodell Bräugasse of Passau (Germany). He also participates in the Daniel Charles Orchestra conducted by Llorenç Barber, in various concerts dedicated to John Cage, including those conducted in October Contemporary Culture Center Valencia (OCCC), the Valencian Museum of the Enlightenment and Modernity (MUVIM ) and the Contemporary Art Space of Castelló (EACC).

http://www.hernantalavera.com/

FAUSTUS: INCIDENT #375

Dominik Pagacz/Canada/2013/00:01:44/United Kingdom premiere

Mephistopheles enlightens Faustus.

Biography/Filmography:

Dominik Pagacz, a Canadian multidisciplinary artist whose body of film work spans over two decades, is the founding member and Artistic Director of Segment 3, an experimental theatre and film production company based in Montreal, Canada.

Filmography:

2014: Quand il vous regarde, Mercitronc!,  All the king’s horses

2013: Segment 3, 3hams, Avec leur tact habituel, 3orthographies, Like molten lead, Their simple needs, A hole in the desert, To sleep, Rawdon, Faustus: incident #375, goodboy, Arabstrap, Sir, replies Monsieur, 3rôles.

http://www.segment3.com/

FLOATERS IN THE EYE

Antoinette Zwirchmayr/Germany/2011/00:03:00/

Scattered points of light flash out from the darkness of the projection, like small forks of lightning, in a continually throbbing succession, and obviously following a systematic pattern, then two hands – the right hand is sewing together each finger of the left hand, the needle penetrates the upper layer of the skin, pulls the thread through, cautiously but smartly, as if there were no pain to be felt. For her film floaters in the eye, Antoinette Zwirchmayr transferred the poem Schliere by Paul Celan in Braille onto an already exposed 16mm film.

Biography/Filmography:

From 2011: Academy of fine Arts – Video and Videoinstallation / Dorit Margreiter
2014 Lecture at Friedl Kubelka School
2014 Assistant Paolo Woods, Summeracademy of fine Arts Salzburg
2010/11 School for Independent Film / Friedl Kubelka (tutor a.o.: Robert Beavers, Peter Tscherkassky, P. Adams Sitney, Nathaniel Dorsky, Ute Aurand)
2009/10 School for Artistic Photography / Friedl Kubelka (tutor a.o.: Victor Burgin, Lisl Ponger)
From 2009: Studies of Romanian Philology, Universitiy of Vienna
2009 International Summeracademy of fine Arts Salzburg/ Ines Doujak
2008/09 School for Photography Vienna

http://www.antoinettezwirchmayr.com/

KISSING IN HATS /

Stuart Pound and Rosemary Norman /United Kingdom/2013/00:01:30/

The poem Kissing in Hats is a villanelle, a verse form where the regular repetition of two key lines gives added urgency to what is being said. In the video, this effect is intensified by multiple tracking of the speaker’s voice, and a moving path scans a set of four drawings of World War Two lovers, kissing in hats before the men must board their train.

Biography/Filmography:

Stuart Pound lives in London and has worked in film, digital video, sound and the visual arts since the early 1970s. Since 1995 he has collaborated with the poet Rosemary Norman. Work has been screened regularly at international film and video festivals.

http://www.stuartpound.info

KOAN II

Sean Martin/Scotland/2014/00:03:00/World premiere

An ongoing series of meditations on the ontology of the image, derived from the tradition of the paradoxical riddle in Zen that is designed to awaken the student.

Biography/Filmography:

Sean Martin is a writer and filmmaker based in Edinburgh. His books include Andrei Tarkovsky and New Waves in Cinema, in addition to works on mediaeval history. He is also a poet, and won the 2011 Wigtown Poetry Prize.
Films include:
Mystery Play (2001 – feature)
The Notebooks of Cornelius Crow (2005 – feature)
Super-8 Cities (2007 (collaborative feature documentary)
Lanterna Magicka: Bill Douglas & the Secret History of Cinema (2009 – feature documentary)
A Boat Retold (2011 – short documentary)
Folie à Deux (2012 – feature)
Koan (2012 – short)

http://www.vimeo.com/lanternamagickafilms

LETTER

Eduardo Kac/United States/1996/00:01:00/

A navigational poem that presents the viewer with the image of a three-dimensional spiral jetting off the center of a two-dimensional spiral. Both spirals are made exclusively of text. The reader is able to grab and spin this cosmic verbal image in all directions. Thus, reading becomes a process of probing the virtual object from all possible angles. The reader is also able to fly through and around the object, thus expanding reading possibilities. In “Letter” a spiraling cone made of words can be interpreted as both converging to or diverging from the flat one. Together they may evoke the creation or destruction of a star. All texts are created as if they were fragments of letters written to the same person. However, in order to convey a particular emotional sphere, the author conflated the subject positions of grandmother, mother, and daughter into one addressee. It is not possible to distinguish to whom each fragment is addressed. The poem makes reference to moments of death and birth in the poet’s family. Letter is presented here as video documentation of an interactive reading experience.

Biography/Filmography:

Eduardo Kac is internationally recognized for his telepresence and bio art. A pioneer of telecommunications art in the pre-Web ’80s, Eduardo Kac (pronounced “Katz”) emerged in the early ’90s with his radical works combining telerobotics and living organisms. His visionary integration of robotics, biology and networking explores the fluidity of subject positions in the post-digital world. His work deals with issues that range from the mythopoetics of online experience (Uirapuru) to the cultural impact of biotechnology (Genesis); from the changing condition of memory in the digital age (Time Capsule) to distributed collective agency (Teleporting an Unknown State); from the problematic notion of the “exotic” (Rara Avis) to the creation of life and evolution (GFP Bunny).

http://www.ekac.org/

LUNAR ALMANAC

Malena Szlam /Canada/2014/00:04:00/

Malena Szlam creates an artisanal journey through magnetic spheres with a staccato layering of single-frame long exposures of a multiplied moon.

Biography/Filmography:

Originally from Chile, Malena Szlam Salazar lives and works in Montreal. A member of the Double Negative Collective, she is a visual artist whose practice is situated at the intersection between cinema and installation art. Her work has been presented at the Festival du nouveau cinema, Images Festival, the NYFF’s Views from the Avant-Garde and the Ann Arbor Film Festival, among others. Her films include: Chronogram of Inexistent Time (2008, instal), Beneath Your Skin of Deep Hollow (2010, short doc), Javi (2011, short), Lunar Almanac (2014, short)

OTHER WOUNDS

Richard Bailey/United States/2013/00:08:27/European premiere

OTHER WOUNDS features three secular homilies on the wonder of childhood perceptions, the strange landscape of life everlasting, and the violence of being human. The video celebrates the wild place that lies between object and symbol, between the concrete particularity of material phenomena and the abstract generality of pure thought. There is a sense of play and reverence in the way the narrator adds mythic emphasis to the sensible features of landscape and architecture in the pictures.

Biography/Filmography:

Richard Bailey’s short films have shown in festivals across the country, including SXSW, Focus, Black Maria, Snake Alley and at Anthology Film Archives in NYC. His poetry collection REVIVAL was awarded Finalist for the 2012 Emily Dickinson First Book Award. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for a short story. His play A SHIP OF HUMAN SKIN was a Semifinalist at The Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 2012 and The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference, 2012.

http://tropicpictures.com

ROLLING FRAMES

Katie Garrett (film), Ella Jane Chappell (poem)/United Kingdom/2014/00:03:00/

The winning poetry film for adults in the Southbank Centre’s “Shot Through The Heart” poetry film competition.

Rolling Frames is an intimate and personal look into the scenarios of three very different relationships that are affected and manipulated by dependency. At the heart of Rolling Frames are a series of shifting voices and characters that inhabit three very different relationships. These relationships are linked by the role that dependency plays in each. To some extent, every relationship involves a yielding of independence. The poem dissects this manner of yielding: the manifestation of greed in desire, the vulnerability in love, the loneliness in lust. The physicality and inner rhythms of the words are translated once over by the expressive movements of dance, and once again through the gaze of the camera’s eyes

Biography/Filmography:

Collaborators include choreography by Anna-Lise Marie Hearn, videography by Katie Garrett (Garrett & Garrett Videography) and poetry by Ella Jane Chappell. With voices by Katie Garrett and Nicholas Hermann.

http://www.anico-dance.com/intro-1-2/

THE SOUND OF BREATHING

Erin Celeste Weisgerber/Canada/2012/00:05:46/United Kingdom premiere

Engage in the ancient practice
Of patching together
Moving and bending with ease

The cinematic translation of a poem, The Sound of Breathing is part dance film, part cine-poem. Shot and edited on 16mm black and white sotck, the film is re-photographed on an optical printer and crudely hand-processed in buckets. The resulting images present a tension between representational depth and film surface.

Biography/Filmography:

Erin Weisgerber is an emerging Montreal-based filmmaker and a graduate of the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema where she received the Faculty of Fine Art`s 2014 ¨Cinema Prize¨ as the ¨most outstanding graduate of the Department of Cinema.¨ Her educational background in philosophy and English literature influence her approach to filmmaking. Along with creating individual analog film works, Weisgerber also contributes to documentary and narrative films as a director of photography and camera operator. She is a member of Montreal`s Double Negative Collective. Her films have played in Canada, France, Britain, the United States, and Lebanon.

V.

Bernard Roddy/United States/2013/00:02:40/

V. received its soundtrack from an accomplished electroacoustic musician, Konstantinos Karathanasis. The film was shot as visual percussion and could be left silent. The idea of flicker has been adapted here for shooting cover art from paperback novels of my youth and “keeping time” to the rhythm of the graphics. V. exploits the personal significance of particular paperback titles I remember owning.

Biography/Filmography:

My work in film from 2009 through 2013 has focused on the body in performance and the poetics of page and speech. Whereas the former organise actions within sequences, the latter investigate the lyrical and textual.

http://tactilecorpus.com