The 2021 Film and Video poetry Symposium Full Lineup

The 2021 Film and Video Poetry Symposium is proud to announce over 100 film and video projects that celebrate artistic excellence through the union of poetry, film, video, animation, digital art, and new media. You will also find an expanded focus within the fields of oratorical, performing arts, epistolary cinema, video art, essay film, historical profiles, and choreopoetry.

We hope to once again bring together cinema enthusiasts, poets, filmmakers, video artists, and media artists to discover international work and ideas that represent all of these these dynamic fields. The Film and Video Poetry Symposium will screen virtually and IRL December 2021 in Los Angeles, Ca. Full program and locations will post shortly.

The Film and Video Poetry Symposium is honored to present the following works within the 2021 program!

Poetry Film/ Videopoetry

FOUR-LEAF CLOVER (poet and filmmaker. Hanna Ojala, Finland, 2020)
PANDORA (poet and filmmaker. Tova Beck-Friedman, US, 2021)
NO WORDS (poet. Ahmed Abdul Raqeeb Alkhulaidi, dir. Mariam Al-Dhubhani, Yemen, 2020)
LITERATURE (poet & filmmaker. Samer Nouh, France, 2021)
GRANDE LITURGIE SITUATIONNISTE (poet and media artist. David Snow, US, 2021)
DITCHES (poet and director. Michelle Elrick, US, 2020)
DAYDREAM IN TWO (visual artist. Divya Singh, India, 2021)
THE TELLS (poet and filmmaker. Scott Stark, US, 2002)
THE MISTAKE (poet and director. Pat Boran, Ireland, 2021)
SHINING SHEEP (poet. Ulrike Almut Sandig, dir. Sascha Conrad, Germany, 2020
DISTORTION (poet. Anqi Lei, dir. Mujin Zhang, US, 2021)
DARK MYRIAD 70 (poet and director. Eta Dahlia, Russian Federation, 2021)
IL LAVORO CIECO / THE BLIND WORKS (poet. Lello Voce, dir. Gianluca Abbate, Italy, 2020)
PROCESSES (poet. Sergej Timofejev, animator. Viktor Timofeev, Latvia, 2021)
SEPPUKU (poet and director. Kimberly Lovie, US, 2021)
CLYTEMNESTRA (poet. Alan Dunnett, dir. Mia Mackie, UK, 2021)
CAMP TEREZIN (poet and director. Alexis Krasilovsky, US, 1999)
LEARNING TO SING (poet and director. Carolina Meza Torres, Mexico, 2021)
GREEK VASE (poet and dir. Pat Boran, Ireland, 2021)
THE MOUTH IS STILL A WILD DOOR (poet. Anne Lesley Selcer, dir. Guta Galli, US, 2020)
THE PARKING LOT OF DREAMS (poet and filmmaker. Alexis Krasilovsky, US, 2021)
STITCH (poet and filmmaker. Caroline Rumley, Austria, 2021)
3 MINUTES AND 48 SECONDS on 2ND APRIL 2020 (poet and filmmaker. Takayuki Fukata, Japan, 2021)
SEQUENCE (poet & director. Tim Thomas, UK, 2021)
BUTTERFLIES IN THE CLOUD (media artist and researcher. Eryk Salvaggio, US, 2021)
CLADOGRAM (poet. Haley Larson, directors. Haley Larson and Timothy David Orme, US, 2019)
I DREAM A QUEER ALLEGORY (poets and filmmakers. Michael V. Smith, Finn Ballard, Jared Mitchell, and RM Vaughan, Germany, 2020)
WHAT NEWS, CENTURIONS? (poet and director. Colm Scully, Ireland, 2021)
GABY - THE MOVING PICTURE (poet and director. Piers Bedford, UK, 2021)
THE FACTS (poet and director. Chris Bernstorf, US, 2019)

Oratorical

MY LAST DUCHESS (set to the poetry of Robert Browning, performer. Mark Wartenberg, dir. Harry Baker, UK, 2020)
WABI-SABI (poet. Kathy Fisher, dir. Louise Abbott, Canada, 2021)
DULCE et DECOUM EST (set to the poetry of Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC, dir. Walter Haussner, spoken by Steven Earl Oliver, US, 2020)
9 BRIEF FILMS FROM SUBURBAN ZEN (poet, reading, and directed by Justin Meckes, US, 2021)
GOOD MORNING (poet and director. Cassaundra Sampson, US, 2020)
THE PARTISAN (set to the poetry of Emmanuel d’Astier de La Vigerie, dir. Walter Haussner, spoken by Steven Earl Oliver, US, 2020)
ODE TO THE CLIMATE (poetry. Gaia Cipriano, directors. Vittorio Caratozzolo and his 1st Grade Class: 3-A)
SINGULARITY (public address by poet Marie Howe, animator. Mariana Lopez, dirs. Elizabeth Myer and Matthew Boulton, US, 2020)
THE CIRCLE (writers. Steve Romero, Thaisan Ngoun, Deron Perrin, Justin Hong, Jadon Godlock, Daniel Wayne Rose, Donnell Campbell, Thomas Bell, Mario Franco, Jr, directors. Marlene D McCurtis & Alexa Kershner, US, 2021)
BLIND BOONE’S BLESSINGS (poet. Tyehimba Jess, dir. Matthew Thompson, US, 2020)
BRIGHTENING (poet. Doireann Ní Ghríofa, dir. Matthew Thompson, US, 2020)
IF 2017 WAS A POEM TITLE (poet. Mahogany L. Browne, dir. Matthew Thompson, US, 2020)
THIS IS NOT A CONFESSIONAL POEM (poem. Paula Meehan, performer. Clare Dunne, dir. Matthew Thompson, US, 2021)
THE REPUBLIC OF MOTHERHOOD (poet. Liz Berry, dir. Matthew Thompson, US, 2020)
KUMUKANDA (poem. Kayo Chingonyi, performer. Paapa Essiedu, dir. Matthew Thompson, US, 2020)
PUERTOPIA (poet. Denice Frohman, dir. Matthew Thompson, US, 2020)

Animation

TETHERED (poet. James Morehead, animator. Gaia Alari, US, 2021)
THE COMBINE (poet. Bill Ratner, animator. Micah Chambers-Goldberg, US, 2021)
FOR WHILE (poet and animator. Jess Irish, US, 2019)
OTONASHI (animation. Martin Gerigk, colloge art. Nikola Gocić, Germany, 2021)
OSCAR SAID A DIRTY WORD (poet and animator. Myron Pulier, US, 2015)
I AM SOIL BREAKING OFF (poet. Paloma Sierra, animation. Andrew Edwards, US, 2021)
BROOKLYN STRONG (poet. Latasha Drax, animation. Arlys Lopez, US, 2021)
A HAND TO HOLD (based on a poem by Stacey Davis, dirs. Ali Clark and Stacey Davis, US, 2021)
THE 90s (poet. Kathleen Flenniken, animation. Elisabeth Flenniken, US, 2020)
I AM INNOCENT (animated by Malak Quota, Saudi Arabia, 2021)
THE ANIMAL (poem by Erin Carlyle, animated by Nora 6592, US, 2020)
YESTERDAY’S WARDROBE (poet and director. Colm Scully, Ireland, 2021)
STOLEN (poet and animator. Christina Giordano, US, 2021)
WHISPER, RUSTLE (animation. Maureen Zent, US, 2021)
HORSE POWER (dir. Christine Veras, animators. Elham Doust-Haghighi, Gina Rattanakone, Emily Banditrat, Sara McClanaham, Austin Sewell, Naznin Sultana, Mayson Bray, Zack Nguyen, Martin Cho, Jacob Reeder, Philip Martin, Kirstin Stevens Schmidt)

Essay Film

SHADOWS IN A LANDSCAPE (written and directed by Edwin Miles, UK, 2020)
DRIVING WITH THE TOP DOWN (written and directed by Edward Gunawan, US, 2021)
SECRET ARCHIVES: RED CARPET HOUSE (written and directed by Bei Yu, China, 2021)
PROMISES (written and directed by Ro Caminal, Spain, 2021)
THE FIRST LINE OF CHINA (written and directed by Hanwen Zhang, China, 2019)
AN ACT OF TRUST (written and directed by Matilde Stole, Netherlands, 2021)
BORAMETZ (written and directed by Yannick Mosimann, Switzerland, 2020)

Experimental Film

PARYS SUITE (writer. Carina van der Walt, director. Diek Grobler, South Africa, 2018)
A NINE-PART SWADESH POEM (conceptual artist. Ted Ollier, US, 2021)
TELEPHLÂNEUR (written and directed by Matthew LaPaglia, US, 2019)
PÀI-LA̍K Ē-POO (poet and filmmaker. Erica Sheu, Taiwan, 2020)
EXERCISE LIVING: THE BEAUTIFUL SCENERY (media artist. Kuang-Yu Tsui, Taiwan, 2020)
SOLEIL, TOUT CE QUE TU VOUDRAS (dir. Marie Tralci, France, 2021)
THE WATER’S TALE ( filmmaker. Virginia Eleuteri Serpieri, Germany, 2021)
“EXCERPT” (written and directed by Joachim Glage, US, 2021)
QUARANTINE (writer and director. Erica Schreiner, US, 2020)
WINDOW SHOPPING (IN THE FALL OF BABYLON) (filmmaker. M. Woods, UK, 2017)
¡PÍFIES! (filmmaker. Ignacio Tamarit, Argentine, 2017)
STARK ELECTRIC JESUS (based on the poetry of Malay Roy Choudhury, directed by Hyash Tanmoy and Mrigankasekhar Ganguly, India, 2014)
THE WIND FORM TAIPEI (Media Artist. Kuang-Yu Tsui, Taiwan, 2020)

Documentary

LANDAYS (director. Inna Dmitrieva, US, 2021)
WHEN I WAS A TREE (poet. Dorothy Randall Gray, director. Djenba Skye Ward, US, 2021)
THE COMPLETE WORKS (d. Justin Stephenson, p bpNichol, Canada, 2015)
TSVETAEVA.OPEN (directed by Alla Damsker, producer. Anotoly Bely & Alla Damsker, Russian Federation, 2021)
RIDING THE HIGHLINE (poets and filmmakers. Kai Carlson-Wee & Anders Carlson-Wee, US, 2013)
BABES IN THE WOODS (filmmaker. Leanna Kaiser, US, 2019)
LE CHANT DES CHEVAUX (written by Julien Henry and director François Kah, Belgium, 2021)

Choreopoem

MOVING BARCELONA (director and poet. Jevan Chowdhury, choreographer. Laura Obiols, UK, 2021)
THAT IF WE GO INTO THE DESERT (poet and director. Katia Sophia Ditzler, Germany, 2020)
NOTHING COMES CLOSE (poet. Hannah Karpinski, dir. Tamar Tabori, choreographer. Alan McTavish, Canada, 2020)
BEYOND THE TREES (poet and director. Fiona Leonard, choreographer. Teya Quarmyne, Germany, 2021)
DIGNITY (directed, written and choreographed by Alayna Jennings, US, 2020)
THE PANDEMIC DANCE: NO. 2: ZOOMING (director and choreographer. Richard Daniels, US, 2021)

Performance Art

TRIBUTE (poetry, performance and directed by Katia Sophia Ditzler, Germany, 2020)
INDIANA IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE TO CRY INTO (set to the poetry of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Tony Brewer, dir. Tony Brewer, US, 2021)
MICHELANGELO (poetry written and performed by Tom Dewey, director. Sven Stears, UK, 2021)
MOON SHADOW (poet. Jo Devadason, directed and choreographed by Kavitha Krishnan, Singapore, 2021)

Video/ Media Installation

A FLYING CENTRE OF GRAVITY (media artist. Janice Howard, UK, 2019)
DESDE EL ENCIERRO ABISMAL, OTRA VENGANZA ES POSIBLE (poet and media artist. Diego Argote, Chile, 2021)
COVID 19 PART 1 (media artists Navid Memar and Mahdi Hosseinzadeh, Islamic Republic of Iran, 2020)
PARALELO (poet. Alina Camps de Echeverri, media artist. Santiago Echeverry, US, 2020)
ACCELERATED INTIMACY (poet and director. Sarah Chor Jing, Singapore, 2018)
COS ENDINS (directed by. Gianluca Abbate & Eduard Escoffet, Italy, 2019)
THE SHOCK OF GARY FISHER (poet. Juba Kalamka, director. John Sanborn, US, 2020)

Epistolary Cinema

DEAR FUTURE ME (writer and filmmaker. Kkoki, Germany, 2021)
I DON’T WANT TO MAKE ART ABOUT YOU ANYMORE (filmmaker. Dexter Marsh-Taylor, US, 2020)

FVPSociety Award recipients from the 2021 Small Media File Festival

DIASPORA (experimental filmmaker. Noor Abouchehade, Canada, 2021)
MY GRANDMOTHER AND THE EATING DISORDER (an essay film written and directed by Marilia Kaiser, Greece, 2021)

The 2020 Film and Video Poetry Symposium Awards

FVPS 2020 | FULL SCHEDULE AND PROGRAM

Image adapted from the film HAIKU (2020) written & directed by Martin Gerigk.

The 2020 Film and Video Poetry Symposium will take place in Los Angeles, California beginning on November 12th and concluding January 2, 2021. FVPS has programmed over 100 films from more than 20 countries, 80 of which will be presented in an outdoor cinema. Our platform has also curated 5 media installations that will be available to the public on an appointment only basis. Lastly, The Film and Video Poetry Society developed and will deploy a 24/7 online streaming network accessible on our website beginning November 12, 2020 and ending December 31, 2020. Through this live video feed viewers will experience a special selection of films programmed for an international online screening experience.

We have pledged to uphold the cinema experience while also making safety and public health our primary goal. There will be no public or walk up access to our events. Entrance to screenings must be confirmed by reservation only.

FVPS PREVIEW NIGHT · FILM BLOCK 1 · HER NAME IS THE SOUND OF WATER

Thursday, November 12, 2020. Our program begins at 800pm.

I BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF THE WORD (poet & director. David Arthur-Simons, Principality of Dasmania, 2016)
SELF-CREATION (director. Shelby Dillon, U.S., 2020)
MEDUSA AND THE ABYSS (director. Felicity Palma, Italy, 2019)
SOMETIMES I WISH MY LIFE WAS A MOVIE (poet & media artist. Zach McLane, U.S., 2017)
WITH AIR AND SALT, UNBREAKABLE HEALTH (director. Maia Iotzova, Switzerland, 2018)
ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME ? (media artist. Caroline Yoo, U.S., 2017)
OH MY WATER (poet & director. Myriam Rey, U.K., 2020)
MY MOTHER IS JUST ONE (writer & director. Teona Galgoțiu, Romania, 2018)
THE 3 ME’S (poet. Felicia Olusanya, director. Simon Daniels, Ireland, 2019)
GIRL IS PRESENCE (poetry & directing by Lynne Sachs & Anne Lesley Selcer, U.S., 2020)
TOAD, LEAF, GRASS, ROCK (director. Federica Foglia, set to the poetry of Eugenio Montale, Canada, 2020)

This program is approximately 50 minutes

To reserve your seat please forward the details of your request to: Attend2020@FVPSociety.com

Image from the film YOUTH GARDEN (2019) directed by Hélène Matte.

FVPS PREVIEW NIGHT · FILM BLOCK 2 · VULNERABILITY IS STRENGTH. REPEAT

Thursday, November 12, 2020. Our program begins at 900pm.

THE LAMENT FOR ART O’LEARY (director. Marcella O'Connor, Ireland, 2019)
THE LAST WERE BURIED HERE (dir. Annette Philo, U.K., 2020)
YOUTH GARDEN (dir. Hélène Matte, Canada, 2019)
A WALK ALONG THE STARS (writer & animator. Lani McHenry, U.S., 2019)
SINKHOLE (poet & director. Dave Richardson, U.S., 2020)
AGAMEMNON’S DAUGHTER (dir. Elise Kermani, set to excerpts from the play “Iphigenia at Aulis” by Euripides, U.S., 2018)
CEASESUSURRATING (writer & director. Ye Mimi, Taiwan, 2018)

The above program is approximately 60 minutes

To reserve your seat please forward the details of your request to: Attend2020@FVPSociety.com

Image from the film HAWAR (2020) directed by Deny Tri Ardianto, poetry by Rahmanu Widayat, and choreography by Mekratingrum Hapsari.

FVPS: OPENING NIGHT · FILM BLOCK 3 · 15 REMARKABLE FILMS & POEMS

Friday, November 13, 2020. Our program begins at 800pm.

THE PROPHETESS (poet & director. Marco Joubert, a reinterpretation of Francis Ponge's “La loi et les prophètes", Canada, 2020)
THE 37% (poet & director. Jeremy Player, U.K., 2020)
BLINK (poet. Jeff Thomson, animation. Amy Neswald, U.S., 2019)
MOURNING FOOD (poet. Charles Edward Payne, directors. Zachary Shea & Alys Brooks, U.S., 2019)
FIRST (animation. Nikolaus Jantsch, poet. Sophie Reyer, Austria, 2019)
THE DEALER (poet. Chloe Jacquet, director. Stephanie Cobban, U.K., 2020)
GETTING CLOSER TO YOU (director. Alejandro T. Acierto, U.S., 2020)
HAWAR (dir. Deny Tri Ardianto, poet. Rahmanu Widayat, choreographer. Mekratingrum Hapsari, Indonesia, 2020)
ENTRE LES IMAGES (poet & director. Vito A. Rowlands, Belgium, 2020)
SOLSTICE SOL INVICTUS (poets. Lucy English & Sarah Tremlett, director. Sarah Tremlett, U.K., 2018)
TENDER THING (writer & director. Samer Nouh, Lebanon, 2019)
FROM A KNIFE WOUND (poet. Chaucer Cameron, director. Lucia Sellars, U.K., 2019)
A MOMENT IN TIME (poet. Kevin McLean, director. Perry Jonsson, U.K., 2020)
VOICE-DESTROY (writer & director. Nick Twardus, U.S, 2018)

short intermission

Canal Brasil & The Film and Video Poetry Society Presents:
EDUARDO GALEANO VAGAMUNDO (2018)

Uruguayan journalist, writer, and novelist amongst other things, Eduardo Hughes Galeano was the ”global soccer’s eminent man of letters”. After his death close friends and readers around the world perform a homage to his life by reading his work. Director Felipe Nepomuceno collects these moments and crafts them together into this loving 70 minute documentary on the biggest storyteller in Latin America.

Film Block 3 is approximately 110 minutes

To reserve your seat please forward the details of your request to: Attend2020@FVPSociety.com

Image from the film STONES FOR THUNDER (2018) directed by Kera Makenzie & Andrew Mausert-Mooney.

FILM BLOCK 4 · THE SKIN OF THE FILM

Saturday, November 14, 2020. Our program begins at 800pm.

This program is co-curated by special guest curator Laura U. Marks and FVPS managing director Jesse Russell Brooks and based on the idea of intercultural cinema proposed in Marks' critically acclaimed book The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses (2000). A sensuous program exploring how the cultural sensorium dilates and transforms when people migrate, or find themselves torn between cultures. Laura U. Marks is Grant Strate Professor in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, and the founder of the Small File Media Festival.

Saturday, November 14, 2020. Our program begins at 800pm.

ALPHABET (media artist. Lies Neve, Netherlands, 2019)
HOMAGE TO SUMMER (writer & director. Katerina Markoulaki, Greece, 2019)
ONE PIECE OF SOAP (writer & director. Adonia Bouchehri, Germany, 2019)
SNOWFALL (directors. Yasir Masood & Peter McCain, poetry. Tabinda Javed & Yasir Masood, U.S., 2020)
UNSOUND (filmmaker. Vivian Ostrovsky, U.S., 2019)
HOMECOMING (writer & director. Akio Yuguchi, animator. Miki Tanaka, Estonia, 2015)

short intermission

MEXICANS LOST IN MEXICO (poet. Nico Amador, director. Irit Reinheimer, U.S., 2020)
REBELLION (writer & director. Franz Quiñonez, Peru, 2020)
60 FLOWERS, 70 CAPSULES, 80 DIGITS (writer & media artist. Arturo Cubacub, U.S., 1982)
LOST IN HER HAIR: MONDAY (dir. Pegah Pasalar, Islamic Republic of Iran, 2019)
PLEASE COME AGAIN (writer & director. Alisa Yang, Japan, 2016)
THE LINEN CLOSET (writers. Ian W. Hill & David Finkelstein, direction & animation. David Finkelstein, U.S., 2016)

The above program is approximately 120 minutes

To reserve your seat please forward the details of your request to: Attend2020@FVPSociety.com

Image from the film THIS IS AFRICA (2020) poet. Ronan Cheneau, choreographer. Aïpeur Foundou, director. Matthieu Maunier-Rossi.

FILM BLOCK 5 · V_RT_C_L V_RT_G_V

Thursday, November 19, 2020. This program begins at 800pm.

UNVOICED (by poet & graphic artist. Ian Gibbins, Australia, 2019)
DER UND DIE (poet & animation. Peter Böving, Germany, 2019)
VITO:BILL 4:3 (writer & director. Courtin Byrd, U.S., 2019)
THIS IS AFRICA (poet. Ronan Cheneau, choreographer. Aïpeur Foundou, director. Matthieu Maunier-Rossi, Congo, 2020)
EMOTIONS IN METAL (writer & director. Tommy Becker, U.S., 2019)
STONES FOR THUNDER (directors. Kera Makenzie & Andrew Mausert-Mooney, U.S., 2018)


The above program is approximately 60 minutes

To reserve your seat please forward the details of your request to: Attend2020@FVPSociety.com

FILM BLOCK 6 · THE REPUBLICS

Thursday, November 19, 2020. This program begins at 900pm.

The Film and Video Poetry Society Presents:
THE REPUBLICS (2020)

Anchored in Stephen Watts’ biography and poetry, director Huw Wahl explores the larger truths of being and the calibrations of response to often hard earned, lived experience. Considering the changing landscapes of settlement in London’s East End and Scottish islands, the destruction of working-class culture and an attendant sense of the collective, this 90 minute 16mm film and the writing contained within it are forms of cultural activism: elegy, graceful celebration, and a blueprint for ongoing resistance.


The Republics is approximately 83 minutes

To reserve your seat please forward the details of your request to: Attend2020@FVPSociety.com

Image from the film THE MIAMI DENTIST (2011) written & directed by David Baeumier.

FILM BLOCK 7 · BABYLON

Friday, November 20, 2020. Our program begins at 800pm.

LAIRS (poet & director. Emma Penaz Eisner, U.S., 2020)
BOILED SKELETONS (writer & director. Sam Gouldthorpe, Poet. Leah Fuentes U.S., 2019)
EKO ILE (poet. Ntongha Ekot, director. Sheldon Chau, Nigeria, 2020)
FROM THERE & NOWHERE CHRONICLES (animator. Jérémy Griffaud, France, 2018)
THE MIAMI DENTIST (writer & director. David Baeumler, U.S., 2011)
THESE HOMES: GHAZALS AT THE ENDS OF AMERICA (p. Minnie Zhang, Victor Xia, Alfred Yu, Stella Li, Celine Choi, dir. Victor Xia, U.S., 2020)
D.R.E.A.M. (media artist. Billy Bjork, U.S., 2019)

This program is approximately 45 minutes

To reserve your seat please forward the details of your request to: Attend2020@FVPSociety.com

FILM BLOCK 8 · LORD KNOWS THE CREAM AIN’T SWEET ENOUGH

Friday, November 20, 2020. Our program begins at 900pm.

MERCY (writer & director. Marilyn Freeman, U.S., 2016)
KEEP YOUR FLOWERS (poet. Ivory Adams, director. Sekou Brown, U.S., 2020)
BRINKS (writer. Daniel Wolff, director. Marla Renzi, U.S., 2020)
SEMI-AUTOMATIC PANTOUM (poet. Chris Green, director. Matt Mullins, U.S., 2019)
THE RIDE (poet. Revital Bilu, director. Dana Goldberg, Israel, 2019)
SNOW ON THA BLUFF (director. Eryc Rodriguez, set to the poetry of Jermaine Lamarr Cole, U.S., 2020)
BOYSHAPEDSPACE (poet & director. Adrian B. Earle, U.K., 2019)
HUES AND HIDDEN KINGS (poet & director. Sydney Morgan, U.S., 2017)

This program is approximately 45 minutes

For reservation please forward your request to: SeatingRequest@FVPSociety.com

image from the film MA’S BUTTON BOX (2020) poet. Anshi Malviya, director. Anubhav Singh.

FVPS FINAL SCREENING AND CLOSING REMARKS

Saturday, November 21, 2020 Program begins at 8:00pm.

THE SIREN’S SONG (poet & director. Thomas Longstaff, U.K., 2019)
MA’S BUTTON BOX (poet. Anshu Malviya, director. Anubhav Singh, India, 2020)
DIALOGUE WITH GEORGIA O’KEEFFE I: CHIMNEY ROCK (poet & director. Patricia L. Meek, U.S., 2018)
THANK JOHNSON I’M WOKE (writer & director. Charles de Agustin, U.S., 2019)
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BUZZ ALDRIN (animator. Avishkar Chhetri, poet. Bill Neumire, U.S., 2020)
ASSASSIN (poet. Alan Dunnett, director. Jenny Xueer Wan, U.K., 2019)
HAIKU (poet & director. Martin Gerigk, Germany, 2020)

short intermission

WHAT MEMPHIS NEEDS (poet & director. Alexis Krasilovsky, U.S., 1991)
RESPEK (poet. Kamari Bright, animator. Christina Perry, U.S., 2018)
FARMLY (poet. Buddy Wakefield, director. Jamie DeWolf, U.S., 2019)
THE SCULPTURE OF PLACE AND TIME (khmer classical dancer. Prumsodun Ok, director. Tatsuhito Utagawa, Japan & Cambodia, 2020)
THE BEZIER CURVE (poet & computer graphics. Jim Hall, U.S., 2019)
HELL YELLOW (media artist. Dean Terry, performance artists. Hannah Weir & Therefore, U.S., 2020)
BIRTH OF A POET (writers & directors. James Franco, Gómez Millán, and Zachary Kerschberg, U.S., 2019)
PRINCE (poet. Lynn Breedlove, video artist. John Sanborn, U.S., 2020)

The Final Screening and Closing Remarks is approximately 100 minutes

To reserve your seat please forward the details of your request to: Attend2020@FVPSociety.com

image from the video piece titled OPHELIA (2020) by video artist Meike Redeker.

THE 2020 FILM AND VIDEO POETRY SYMPOSIUM · ONLINE PROGRAMMING · www.FVPSociety.com/online

Beginning at 11:59pm on November 12, 2020 The Film and Video Poetry Society will launch a 24 hour, 7 day a week video poetry channel that will conclude broadcasting on December 31, 2020. The following films have been specially selected for online transmission for what we have designed to emulate the 24 hour “television” entertainment cycle. This extensive program will be moderated by announcements, live feeds from the screening location, poetry film highlights, special guest interviews, and filmmaker information. Presented online in the following order.

PLASTICNIC (poet and director. Fiona T. Lam, animator. Tisha Deb Pillai, Canada, 2018)
TERRITORIAL POETICS (performing artist. Bill Psarras, Greece, 2019)
TIDES (writer & director. Andre Silva, U.S., 2020)
COMPANION (video artist. Jack Williams, Poland, 2020)
BIG DATA (writer & director. Diego Bonilla & Rodolfo Mata, Mexico, 2019)
LORELEI (poet & digital artist. Mark Niehus, Australia, 2020)
RODEO DAYS (poet & director. Marie Craven, Australia, 2019)
UNBORN RIVERS OF SKY (poet. Daniel DeVaughn, filmmaker. Brian Ratigan, U.S., 2020)
SI JE TE VOLE LA MER (writers. Cedric Chaabi & Ro Caminal, director. Ro Caminal, Algeria, 2018)
IM WALDE (poet. Dieter Liewerscheidt, directors. Moritz Liewerscheidt, Jenny Dam, Germany, 2019)
SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF (writer & filmmaker. Alexandria L. Vicari, U.S., 2020)
THE LEGACY OF ROETHKE (director. Jeff Vande Zande, U.S., 2019)
DEAD METAPHOR (writer & moving image artist. Richard Ashrowan, U.K., 2019)
DRIFT (writer, director & animator. Elizabeth Lowe, Czech Republic & U.S., 2020)
A LITTLE OFF THE TOP (written & directed by Philip Brubaker, U.S., 2019)
DARK MYRIAD 7 (poet & direction. Eta Dahlia, U.K., 2020)
BACKWARDS GOD (poet & director. Natalie Cook, U.S., 2019)
KALI EXORCISM (poet. Helen Moore, animator. Howard Vause, U.K., 2015)
AXIOM (visual artist. Sally Grizzell Larson, set to the poetry of Amedee Ozenfant, U.S., 2010)
OPHELIA (video artist. Meike Redeker, Germany, 2020)
ENCOUNTERS (animator. Mona Keil, Germany, 2020)
DRIFTING CITIES (writer & director. Michal Higgins, Ireland, 2017)
LIMBUS (poet & director. Katerina Vlahbey, Greece, 2019)
THE STORY OF EMOTICON (animator. Jiayang Huang, U.S., 2020)
LA RIVE VIRALE (writer & director. Miljana Nikovic, Germany, 2020)
CONQUEST AND PRISON (poets & choreographers. Lorin Sookool, Oscar Buthelez & Julia Wilson, director. Mark Freeman, South Africa, 2015)
VAGUELY SURROUNDING PATHS II (visual artist. Fernando Brito, Portugal, 2019)
ENRIQUE VALDES, POESIA Y DESTIERRO (director. Alvaro Pereira Molina, Chile, 2019)
GEOLOGICS (media artist. Vania Xiang, U.S., 2019)
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A MOSQUITO (director. Walter Smits, U.S., 2020)
FACE TO FACE (writer & animation. David Asher Brook, Australia, 2020)
PORCELAIN (media artist. Barry Olusegun-Noble Despenza, U.S., 2020)
DÉPLOIEMENTS (media artist. Stéphanie Lagarde, Netherlands, 2018)
HIATUS (filmmaker. Vivian Ostrovsky, set to the words of Clarice Lispector, and the poetry of Willem Boshoff, Seiichi Niikuni, Josef Hiršal,
Bohumila Grögerová, and beloved Bolivian concrete poet Eugen Gromringer, U.S., 2019)

image from the digital art piece titled BIRTHDAY (2016) by digital artist Michael Lasater.

The 2020 Film and Video Poetry Symposium’s principle exhibition opens on November 30, 2020 and will close on January 2, 2021. This year we have programmed 2 group shows and 3 media installations. Our exhibits are designed to minimize the potential spread of Covid-19. Our gallery will be equipped with an air purifier, air conditioner, disposable ear buds (or bring your own), two hand sanitation stations, access to disposable masks, and gloves if necessary. Wearing masks will be required at all times. Guests may attend by appointment only. Each appointment may provide entrance for a maximum of four guests.

WEEK 1 · TIME MACHINES
Monday, November 30, 2020 - December 5, 2020

A selection of 5 important works of world class filmmaking, animation, and digital art will be on display in our video gallery.

GÜNLER YÜRÜDÜĞÜNDE (artist. Hande Sever, Turkey, 2018)
BERTHA’S CHILDREN (filmmakers. Roberta Friedman & Grahame Weinbren, U.S., 1976)
BIRTHDAY (digital artist. Michael Lasater, U.S., 2016)
EVERTED SANCTUARIES VI (digital artist. Ryan Lewis, U.S., 2020)
MORTE ET DABO (animator. Rubén Möller, Canada, 2019)

The 2020 Film and Video Poetry Society
5810 1/2 N Figueroa Street
Los Angeles, California 90042

By Appointment Only
1000am - 900pm

If you wish to make an appointment for this exhibit please email your request to: Attend2020@FVPSociety.com

WEEK 2 · FILM DIGITALIA: A PROFILE PICTURE
Monday, December 7, 2020 - Saturday, December 12, 2020

7 channel media installation by artist and special guest Matt Whitman

The 2020 Film and Video Poetry Society
5810 1/2 N Figueroa St
Los Angeles, California 90042

By Appointment Only
1000am - 900pm

If you wish to make an appointment for this exhibit please email your request to: Attend2020@FVPSociety.com

WEEK 3 · FORTUNE, FORTUNA, FORTUNAE
Monday, December 14, 2020 - Saturday, December 19, 2020

A selection of 3 important and critical films regarding the history of Spain.

Director Tomás Pérez Torrella’s titanic experimental film PRÍAPO compiles Spain’s entire history into a 160 minute film without dialogue. Poetry filmmakers Adrien Milliot & Maxime Dejob’s CONTIGO A SOLAS pays tribute to Spanish poetry and the 20th century ambassadors whom were drawn by the whirlwinds of Francoism. Alex Mendez Giner’s subtle essay film DISPLACED rounds out this group portrait. His work focuses on how Franco pushed his family out of Spain. Three mindfully composed works on and from Reino de España.

PRÍAPO (director. Tomás Pérez Torrella, Spain, 2020), DISPLACED (writer & director. Alex Mendez Giner, Spain, 2019), CONTIGO A SOLAS (dir. Adrien Milliot & Maxime Dejob, set to the poetry of Federico García Lorca, Antonio Machada, Lousi Aragon, Lucía Sánche Saornil, Spain, 2019)

The 2020 Film and Video Poetry Society
5810 1/2 N Figueroa Street on the 2nd Floor
Los Angeles, California 90042

By Appointment Only
1000am - 900pm

If you wish to make an appointment for this exhibit please email your request to: Attend2020@FVPSociety.com

WEEK 4 · STAY WITH ME !
Monday, December 21, 2020 - December 26, 2020

2 channel media installation by visual and media artist Lejin Fan

The Film and Video Poetry Society
5810 1/2 N Figueroa St
Los Angeles, California 90042

By Appointment Only
1000am - 900pm

If you wish to make an appointment for this exhibit please email your request to: Attend2020@FVPSociety.com

WEEK 5 · THE STRONGER EXPERIMENT
Monday, December 28, 2020 - January 2, 2021

4 channel installation by filmmaker and director Adraina Páramo

Adriana Páramo filmed three sets of director-actress teams preparing for a role in their short film adaptation of August Strindberg’s play The Stronger. The goal was to see how the same text would come across differently depending on the creative process and the extent to which the characters created would reflect patriarchal values. The outcomes of these are the 3 short films directed by each director and a video essay by Páramo.

The Film and Video Poetry Society
5810 1/2 N Figueroa St
Los Angeles, California 90042

By Appointment Only
1000am - 900pm

If you wish to make an appointment for this exhibit please email your request to: Attend2020@FVPSociety.com

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Please note: Due to the public health crisis The Film and Video Poetry Society may announce changes to scheduling, event dates, times, venues, order of events, or films within each program. Please remain alert and double check our program and schedule frequently. If you
wish to make an appointment for the gallery or reservation for a screening please email your request to:
Attend2020@FVPSociety.com

For any additional questions regarding The 2020 Film and Video Poetry Symposium please contact us using this email:
Admin@FVPSociety.com

DOWNLOAD | 2020 FILM AND VIDEO POETRY SYMPOSIUM PRESS RELEASE

The 2020 Film and Video poetry Symposium Full Lineup

The 2020 Film and Video Poetry Symposium Official Selections are here. We are proud to announce over 100 films and projects celebrating artistic excellence through the union of poetry, film, video, animation, digital art, and new media. You will also find an expanded focus within the fields of essay film, historical profiles, choreopoetry, and documentary. We hope to once again bring together cinema enthusiasts, poets, filmmakers, video artists, and media artists to discover international work and ideas that represents all of these these dynamic fields.

The Film and Video Poetry Symposium will run November - December 2020 in Los Angeles, Ca.

The Film and Video Poetry Symposium is honored to present the following poetry films, animations, videopoems, experimental films, installations, documentaries, video art within our 2020 program:

Poetry Film & Videopoetry

·       ENTRE LES IMAGES (poet & director. Vito A. Rowlands, Belgium, 2020)
·       ASSASSIN (poet. Alan Dunnett, director. Jenny Xueer Wan, U.K., 2019)
·       TENDER THING (writer & director. Samer Nouh, Lebanon, 2019)
·       MEXICANS LOST IN MEXICO (poet. Nico Amador, director. Irit Reinheimer, U.S., 2020)
·       FROM A KNIFE WOUND (poet. Chaucer Cameron, director. Lucia Sellars, U.K., 2019)
·       THE BEZIER CURVE (poet & computer graphics. Jim Hall, U.S., 2019)
·       THE SIREN’S SONG (poet & director. Thomas Longstaff, U.K., 2019)
·       BACKWARDS GOD (poet & director. Natalie Cook, U.S., 2019)
·       HAIKU (poet & director. Martin Gerigk, Germany, 2020)
·       PORCELAIN (media artist. Barry Olusegun-Noble Despenza, U.S., 2020)
·       GIRL IS PRESENCE (poetry & direction by Lynne Sachs & Anne Lesley Selcer, U.S., 2020)
·       BIG DATA (writer & director. Diego Bonilla & Rodolfo Mata, Mexico, 2019)
·       LA RIVE VIRALE (writer & director. Miljana Nikovic, Germany, 2020)
·       THE MIAMI DENTIST (writer & director. David Baeumler, U.S., 2011)
·       SNOW ON THA BLUFF (director. Eryc Rodriguez, set to the poetry of Jermaine Lamarr Cole, U.S., 2020)
·       FARMLY (poet. Buddy Wakefield, director. Jamie DeWolf, U.S., 2019)
·       THE PROPHETESS (poet & director. Marco Joubert, a reinterpretation of Francis Ponge's “La loi et les prophètes", Canada, 2020)
·       DARK MYRIAD 7 (poet & direction. Eta Dahlia, U.K., 2020)
·       DEAD METAPHOR (writer & moving image artist. Richard Ashrowan, U.K., 2019)
·       KEEP YOUR FLOWERS (poet. Ivory Adams, director. Sekou Brown, U.S., 2020)
·       BOYSHAPEDSPACE (poet & director. Adrian B. Earle, U.K., 2019)
·       OH MY WATER (poet & director. Myriam Rey, U.K., 2020)
·       BOILED SKELETONS (writer & director. Sam Gouldthorpe, poet. Leah Fuentes, U.S., 2019)
·       THESE HOMES: GHAZALS AT THE ENDS OF AMERICA (p. Minnie Zhang, Victor Xia, Alfred Yu, Stella Li, Celine Choi, dir. Victor Xia, U.S., 2020)
·       THE 37% (poet & director. Jeremy Player, U.K., 2020)
·       RODEO DAYS (poet & director. Marie Craven, Australia, 2019)
·       AGAMEMNON’S DAUGHTER (dir. Elise Kermani, set to excerpts from the play “Iphigenia at Aulis” by Euripides, U.S., 2018)
·       AXIOM (visual artist. Sally Grizzell Larson, set to the poetry of Amedee Ozenfant, U.S., 2010)
·       SNOWFALL (directors. Yasir Masood & Peter McCain, poetry. Tabinda Javed & Yasir Masood, U.S., 2020)
·       MA’S BUTTON BOX (poet. Anshu Malviya, director. Anubhav Singh, India, 2020)
·       THE RIDE (poet. Revital Bilu, director. Dana Goldberg, Israel, 2019)
·       SINKHOLE (poet & director. Dave Richardson, U.S., 2020)
·       LAIRS (poet & director. Emma Penaz Eisner, U.S., 2020)
·       TOAD, LEAF, GRASS, ROCK (director. Federica Foglia, set to the poetry of Eugenio Montale, Canada, 2020)
·       THE 3 ME’S (poet. Felicia Olusanya, director. Simon Daniels, Ireland, 2019)
·       WHAT MEMPHIS NEEDS (poet & director. Alexis Krasilovsky, U.S., 1991)
·       I BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF THE WORD (poet & director. David Arthur-Simons, Principality of Dasmania, 2016)
·       DISPLACED (writer & director. Alex Mendez Giner, Spain, 2019)
·       A WALK ALONG THE STARS (writer & animator. Lani McHenry, U.S., 2019)
·       EKO ILE (poet. Ntongha Ekot, director. Sheldon Chua, Nigeria, 2020)
·       LIMBUS (poet & director. Katerina Vlahbey, Greece, 2019)
·       60 FLOWERS, 70 CAPSULES, 80 DIGITS (writer & media artist. Arturo Cubacub, U.S., 1982)
·       THE DEALER (poet. Chloe Jacquet, director. Stephanie Cobban, U.K., 2020)
·       SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF (writer & filmmaker. Alexandria L. Vicari, U.S., 2020)
·       PRINCE (poet. Lynn Breedlove, video artist. John Sanborn, U.S., 2020)
·       DIALOGUE WITH GEORGIA O’KEEFFE I: CHIMNEY ROCK (poet & director. Patricia L. Meek, U.S., 2018)
·       SEMI-AUTOMATIC PANTOUM (poet. Chris Green, director. Matt Mullins, U.S., 2019)
·       MOURNING FOOD (poet. Charles Edward Payne, directors. Zachary Shea & Alys Brooks, U.S., 2019)
·       UNVOICED (by poet & graphic artist. Ian Gibbins, Australia, 2019)
·       SOLSTICE SOL INVICTUS (poets. Lucy English & Sarah Tremlett, director. Sarah Tremlett, U.K., 2018)
·       UNBORN RIVERS OF SKY (poet. Daniel DeVaughn, filmmaker. Brian Ratigan, U.S., 2020)

Experimental Film

·       MEDUSA AND THE ABYSS (director. Felicity Palma, Italy, 2019)
·       YOUTH GARDEN (dir. Hélène Matte, Canada, 2019)
·       DRIFTING CITIES (writer & director. Michal Higgins, Ireland, 2017)
·       LOST IN HER HAIR: MONDAY (dir. Pegah Pasalar, Islamic Republic of Iran, 2019)
·       THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A MOSQUITO (director. Walter Smits, U.S., 2020)
·       VOICE-DESTROY (writer & director. Nick Twardus, U.S, 2018)
·       VAGUELY SURROUNDING PATHS II (visual artist. Fernando Brito, Portugal, 2019)
·       ONE PIECE OF SOAP (writer & director. Adonia Bouchehri, Germany, 2019)
·       BERTHA’S CHILDREN (filmmakers. Roberta Friedman & Grahame Weinbren, U.S., 1976)
·       STONES FOR THUNDER (directors. Kera Makenzie & Andrew Mausert-Mooney, U.S., 2018)
·       THE LAST WERE BURIED HERE (dir. Annette Philo, U.K., 2020)
·       THE LINEN CLOSET (writers. Ian W. Hill & David Finkelstein, direction & animation. David Finkelstein, U.S., 2016)
·       SELF-CREATION (director. Shelby Dillon, U.S., 2020)
·       DRIFT (writer, director & animator. Elizabeth Lowe, Czech Republic & U.S., 2020)
·       SOMETIMES I WISH MY LIFE WAS A MOVIE (poet & media artist. Zach McLane, U.S., 2017)
·       CEASESUSURRATING (writer & director. Ye Mimi, Taiwan, 2018)
·       GETTING CLOSER TO YOU (director. Alejandro T. Acierto, U.S., 2020)
·       MY MOTHER IS JUST ONE (writer & director. Teona Galgoțiu, Romania, 2018)
·       EMOTIONS IN METAL (writer & director. Tommy Becker, U.S., 2019)
·       GÜNLER YÜRÜDÜĞÜNDE (artist. Hande Sever, Turkey, 2018)
·       UNSOUND (filmmaker. Vivian Ostrovsky, U.S., 2019)
·       GEOLOGICS (media artist. Vania Xiang, U.S., 2019)
·       THE STORY OF EMOTICON (animator. Jiayang Huang, U.S., 2020)

Animation

·       DER UND DIE (poet & animation. Peter Böving, Germany, 2019)
·       PLASTICNIC (poet and director. Fiona T. Lam, animator. Tisha Deb Pillai, Canada, 2018)
·       RESPEK (poet. Kamari Bright, animator. Christina Perry, U.S., 2018)
·       BLINK (poet. Jeff Thomson, animation. Amy Neswald, U.S., 2019)
·       THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BUZZ ALDRIN (animator. Avishkar Chhetri, poet. Bill Neumire, U.S., 2020)
·       ENCOUNTERS (animator. Mona Keil, Germany, 2020)
·       IM WALDE (poet. Dieter Liewerscheidt, directors. Moritz Liewerscheidt, Jenny Dam, Germany, 2019)
·       FACE TO FACE (writer & animation. David Asher Brook, Australia, 2020)
·       MORTE ET DABO (animator. Rubén Möller, Canada, 2019)
·       FIRST (animation. Nikolaus Jantsch, poet. Sophie Reyer, Austria, 2019)
·       FROM THERE AND NOWHERE CHRONICLES (animator. Jérémy Griffaud, France, 2018)
·       KALI EXORCISM (poet. Helen Moore, animator. Howard Vause, U.K., 2015)

Choreopoetry

·       HAWAR (dir. Deny Tri Ardianto, poet. Rahmanu Widayat, choreographer. Mekratingrum Hapsari, Indonesia, 2020)
·       THIS IS AFRICA (poet. Ronan Cheneau, choreographer. Aïpeur Foundou, director. Matthieu Maunier-Rossi, Congo, 2020)
·       THE SCULPTURE OF PLACE AND TIME (khmer classical dancer. Prumsodun Ok, director. Tatsuhito Utagawa, Japan & Cambodia, 2020)
·       CONQUEST AND PRISON (poets & choreographers. Lorin Sookool, Oscar Buthelez & Julia Wilson, director. Mark Freeman, South Africa, 2015)

Documentary, Educational, and Historical Profiles

·       ENRIQUE VALDES, POESIA Y DESTIERRO (director. Alvaro Pereira Molina, Chile, 2019)
·       THE LAMENT FOR ART O’LEARY (director. Marcella O'Connor, Ireland, 2019)
·       BIRTH OF A POET (writers & directors. James Franco, Gómez Millán, and Zachary Kerschberg, U.S., 2019)
·       WITH AIR AND SALT, UNBREAKABLE HEALTH (director. Maia Iotzova, Switzerland, 2018)
·       PRÍAPO (director. Tomás Pérez Torrella, Spain, 2020)
·       THE REPUBLICS (poet. Stephen Watts, director. Huw Wahl, U.K., 2020)
·       EDUARDO GALEANO VAGAMUNDO (director. Felipe Nepomuceno, Brazil, 2018)
·       THE LEGACY OF ROETHKE (director. Jeff Vande Zande, U.S., 2019)
·       A LITTLE OFF THE TOP (written & directed by Philip Brubaker, U.S., 2019)

· HIATUS (filmmaker. Vivian Ostrovsky, set to the words of Clarice Lispector, and the poetry of Willem Boshoff, Seiichi Niikuni, Josef Hiršal,
Bohumila Grögerová, and beloved Bolivian concrete poet Eugen Gromringer, U.S., 2019)

·       CONTIGO A SOLAS (dir. Adrien Milliot & Maxime Dejob, set to the poetry of Federico García Lorca, Antonio Machada, Lousi Aragon, Lucía
Sánche Saornil, Spain, 2019)

Essay Film

·       BRINKS (writer. Daniel Wolff, director. Marla Renzi, U.S., 2020)
·       SI JE TE VOLE LA MER (writers. Cedric Chaabi & Ro Caminal, director. Ro Caminal, Algeria, 2018)
·       HOMAGE TO SUMMER (writer & director. Katerina Markoulaki, Greece, 2019)
·       HOMECOMING (writer & director. Akio Yuguchi, animator. Miki Tanaka, Estonia, 2015)
·       REBELLION (writer & director. Franz Quiñonez, Peru, 2020)
·       PLEASE COME AGAIN (writer & director. Alisa Yang, Japan, 2016)
·       THANK JOHNSON I’M WOKE (writer & director. Charles de Agustin, U.S., 2019)
·       MERCY (writer & director. Marilyn Freeman, U.S., 2016)
·       VITO:BILL 4:3 (writer & director. Courtin Byrd, U.S., 2019)
·       TIDES (writer & director. Andre Silva, U.S., 2020)

Digital, Media Installation, Ensemble, Performance and Video Art

· PROFILE PICTURE (media artist. Matt Whitman, U.S., 2019)
·       STAY WITH ME! (media artist. Lejin Fan, U.S., 2019)
·       D.R.E.A.M. (media artist. Billy Bjork, U.S., 2019)
·       EVERTED SANCTUARIES VI (digital artist. Ryan Lewis, U.S., 2020)
·       LORELEI (poet & digital artist. Mark Niehus, Australia, 2020)
·       OPHELIA (video artist. Meike Redeker, Germany, 2020)
·       COMPANION (video artist. Jack Williams, Poland, 2020)
·       A MOMENT IN TIME (poet. Kevin McLean, director. Perry Jonsson, U.K., 2020)
·       HUES AND HIDDEN KINGS (poet & director. Sydney Morgan, U.S., 2017)
·       ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME ? (media artist. Caroline Yoo, U.S., 2017)
·       DÉPLOIEMENTS (media artist. Stéphanie Lagarde, Netherlands, 2018)
· THE STRONGER EXPERIMENT (media artist. Adriana Páramo, Spain, 2020)
·       HELL YELLOW (media artist. Dean Terry, performance artists. Hannah Weir & Therefore, U.S., 2020)
·       BIRTHDAY (digital artist. Michael Lester, U.S., 2016)
·       ALPHABET ( media artist. Lies Neve, Netherlands, 2019)
·       TERRITORIAL POETICS (performing artist. Bill Psarras, Greece, 2019)

FVPS will announce the 2020 program, venue, and schedule on October 12, 2020.

The Film and Video Poetry Symposium 2020 program advisors are FVPSociety managing director Jesse Russell Brooks, City of Inglewood, California Public Arts Consultant and Commissioner Helen Lessick, Associate Lecturer of Video Art Post Production at Syracuse University
Alexander Cole, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art Executive Director Rex Bruce, media consultant and psychologist Dorothy Adams Beatty,
and associate professor of film studies at Carleton University, Ottawa, critic, author, and curator of artists' independent media Laura U. Marks.

For more information about our event and mission please click here.

After Grace: A Dialogue with Poet Dez'Mon Omega Fair

Still from the video installation After Grace: I - VII (2019) written and assembled by Dez’Mon Omega Fair

The 2019 Film and Video Poetry Symposium was our first program with an artist in residence.  Poet and performance artist Dez’Mon Omega Fair not only trailblazed a structure for future residencies, but also presented groundbreaking content.

Fair’s videopoetry series “After Grace” was presented at The Los Angeles Center for Digital Art in situ with his piece “At The Cross”, an assemblage of ink on washi paper, poetic text, and found objects spanning a 12 by 12 foot wall for our gallery program “Analog Sun, Digital Moon”. 

Visual artist and filmmaker Avital Oehler interviewed Dez’Mon about the creative process for both his poetry and work as a painter. The following exchange between the artists began on May 17, 2019 and ended June 29, 2019. This article was edited then finalized on June 19, 2020.

Avital Oehler: Talk about the poem After Grace. Is it self-referential? Is it borne out of our culture’s obsession with social media?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: After Grace is about coming into deeper self-awareness. The poem is also about three different views of the same experience. It is a kaleidoscopic vision coming into focus. Finally. Or maybe. A complete feeling in reflection. This poem marks my decision to identify as a writer and poet.  Writing for me, is an attempt to articulate the act of painting.  After Grace signifies the transition from watercolor to poetry. And now poetry to installations, from there to performance.

Avital Oehler: How did the poem After Grace become a video project?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: After Grace kept repeating in my mind as various lines, in various rhythms, allowing me various vantage points. Growing louder as I continued forward through several life transformations. Rumination did not stop until I wrote the words down. The videopoetry medium emerged from me quickly after.

I not only arrived in Los Angeles anticipating new experiences, but I had also left a familiar creative practice on the east coast. I no longer had a studio. I had my paintings but no longer had the space to physically express myself, to make the mess of visual art. Videopoetry became a way to continue practice with a visual space, looping in collaboration with artists I value.

Avital Oehler: How did you choose the video directors?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: The filmmakers and I chose each other. Particularly, two of the directors I had worked with over the years in fashion. I did the costumes for Kailee McGee’s feature length film #Blessed (2015). In this way, we had already developed our joint aesthetic and work ethic. Lior Shamiz and I met during a residency at PAM Residencies. In a studio visit I shared with them the project. Lior’s film was the sixth version of After Grace.

Poetry uses language to surmount itself. I hope the viewer gets a sense that poetry is everywhere and all moments are an entry point. And the experiences with these creative people come from a realm much larger than purposeful friendship, networking, or choice; each person I encounter creatively, merely continues the ongoing reflective quality that is Art.

Avital Oehler: What instructions, if any, were given to each filmmaker?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: After Grace as a videopoetry series has been and continues to be a work in progress, instruction varies, and converges with the filmmakers where they are in their own practice. Camille Cotteverte, for example, was excited and primed to use a cinemagraph effect and felt that a controlled environment would suit best. I had completed an iteration of a work titled At The Cross, an immersive installation of large watercolors and other source materials at PAM Residencies. This was the perfect environment for her to video experiment. Camille presents her interpretation of After Grace as documentation of my work at PAM gallery space. Another collaborator, David Andrews was searching for projects that were less advertisement driven and more artful. We hybridized the poem with a commercial framework: “To sell poetics”.

Image from the videopoem After Grace: IIX (2019) directed by David Lockwood Andrews

Avital Oehler: Talk about the experience of making videopoems. 

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: One has to want to. Filmmaking certainly has not proven to be as forgiving as painting or writing for me. So I stay away from the production cycle if I can. I place my energy more so into the continuous mission to make sure that the filmmakers have a destination for their films.

Avital Oehler: Was it a collaborative effort?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: Good collaborative work is all about trust and good collaborative work is also about tension. But most importantly, one has to want to see the other succeed. Having a different perspective is the point of collaboration in my opinion. But overall, the collective vision requires both artists to respect what brought them together. Further, to be known, seen and or challenged by another person in creative space, a vulnerable space: This is where the beauty, and or chaos of making work with others can thrive.

Avital Oehler: Poets, filmmakers, and artists are legendary for being controlling. Did you discover yourself within a power dynamic or struggle while collaborating?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: I did, though; this tug of war is futile. A tug between three: what I thought the project was; what the collaboration efforts should be; and the reality of getting it done, all began to remind me of past lessons with watercolor.

Releasing the illusion of control is my only way to consciously paint with water: acceptance, mutual decisions, and impressions. Working with others becomes working with water; I’m in conversation with the science and the nature of a person, with the science and nature of an environment. All of existence is collaborative. A happy medium can be maintained between what you want and what’s happening in the moment. I live in this division.

Avital Oehler: What did you intend to accomplish with these films and the After Grace project?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: Repetition. Maybe even exercising some boredom and out of boredom comes something else. I intend the project to feel like it does when you hear a pop song on the radio too often, and then remixes come.

I also took the cue from who I was in the company of. I surrounded myself with performance artists, namely my partner, Nick Duran and other brilliant artists who are technically strong and emotionally raw in their practice, their expression. I became a part of a community of artists at Pieter Performance Space in Lincoln Hieghts, Ca. Seeing more performance art while collecting video content, I began to feel more clearly that all people are artists but we so easily forget. We need to be reminded over and over again. To instigate this idea I decided to repeat the same poem over and over again within my performances. Thinking perhaps at some point my poetry will become propaganda for a more aspirational future. Poetry and visual art needs to be propagandized: agitprop. I’m here for it, for expressions that invoke “non-artist” into new avenues of creative thinking.

Still image from the videopoem After Grace: VII (2019) directed by Jonathan Fasulo

Avital Oehler: Is there a film that stands out in your mind? For me, Fasulo’s film touched me on a deep visceral level that I can’t even quite explain.

Dez’Mon Omega Fair:  Jonathan Fasulo’s piece After Grace: VII (2019) is an example of major shifts in how African men are seen, portrayed, and embodied in film. Narrow and pejorative narratives of the past are being evened out. I think about the evolution of black queerness in popular culture: RuPaul, slowly for decades, now successfully carving out space for the art of drag in the mainstream; Billy Porter in Pose; and Frank Ocean an obsession among everyone, but especially straight men. Yah know.

From the After Grace: VII shot list: [back bending over waves and jagged rocks in a pseudo sports illustrated poetry flick] this is Jon and I’s friendship and working relationship in a nutshell. Jonathan has been taking my photo for years, since we were twenty something young at Savannah College of Art and Design.

Avital Oehler: Are more films forthcoming?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: Yes, there are multiple videopoems in post. I also have a new After Grace stanza.

Avital Oehler: Some of the videopoems focus on you, while others focus on your artworks. Say a few words about your approached to either of these elements.

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: Most of the filmmakers wanted my personhood at center though I was influencing them to find something to shoot without me, from within themselves; that proved not so readily imaginable. I had to become “okay” with taking up more face time, requiring me to develop my own senses for performance and with this I often brought along my visual artwork. Doing so is uncomfortable but important educationally. I further understand what my personhood represents in the world because of my participation in the work. This ushered in ownership of said messaging and identity.

During the development of After Grace II (2015) filmmaker Sarah Harron wanted to film the painting process. We went with a parallel message of incomplete works, works in progress, that is, since this was only the second videopoem in the series, I was still unsure about where the overall project was going. It was still being painted, filmed, collected, pondered upon, etc. When we completed the takes, Sarah edited the footage together with silence, adding motion text, the stanzas of the poem floating juxtaposed to the motion of my brush and sponge. This iteration is about further contemplation: waiting for the right moment to add new elements.

These videopoems have also become a chronicle of not only the shifts within my practice, but also my ongoing development as an artist and writer. Archiving my artwork in this manner was not a deliberate function for After Grace. Though I am pleased with the project being a marker that indicates such evolution for myself. Through this I have learned to exercise keeping an historical record of my work and I have been grateful for the filmmakers for this as well.

The shift into performance is almost too raw to chew on, to talk about. I can say that I’ve noticed new forms of serendipity while producing videopoems.  Opportunities arise to travel deeper into vulnerability, to practice spontaneity, and be on the look out for happy coincidences. These are invitations to acknowledge my intuition so that I may maximize an effect.  For example, the poem for Camille’s piece was recorded in the middle of the Integratron. This is a 38 ft tall cupola structure with a diameter of 55 ft designed by ufologist and contactee George Van Tassel. Tassel built the structure in Landers, California, supposedly following instructions provided by visitors from the planet Venus. I made the recording after a sound bath because the facilitator suggested trying the acoustic resonance.

Director Lior Shamriz brought the series through a much different threshold. I invited them to the project as they were completing another film abroad with artists Chloé Griffin, Jongwook Choi, and Yoji Matsumara. Lior filmed After Grace: VI (2019) in rural Japan. I am absent from the set.

Threshold II (2011) watercolor on washi paper by Dez’Mon Omega Fair | Photographed by Ward Price

Avital Oehler: Is there a specific meaning of the painted pieces as they relate to the poem?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: No. But, the paintings and the poem share a goal or a utility. Both share teams of thought and work in tandem to create a flow state, meditation, or groove. This “groove” is fairly accessible to me when I’m painting. Not so much for me with writing.

The act of speaking, reading, or writing words is fickle in a way that the pigment, line, and shape are not. Firstly, language can be of a different place, time, or culture. I have also recognized that images are forever logged in the subconscious mind while words are forever changing or fade.  Because of this I activate poetry as a marker on my current and linear timeline, for this case it is my painted images.

I am asking the audience to find within themselves perhaps the place where I am writing from, to rework their ideals of language from the inside to the outside, while also maintaining a memory of how these concepts are reduced to the spoken word.

Avital Oehler: You have amassed quite a treasure trove of these watercolor paintings — how would you like to present them to the world?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: In mass, covering an entire gallery space has been satisfying. I have had ceremoniously long and private showings of watercolor, presenting them one by one equaling hundreds or so. It can be exhausting, but is also gratifying and soothing. My practice is one of catharsis.

I’m most happy with my exhibitions when they achieve a sense of ceremony or even church. My favorite exhibit so far was in Pendleton Center for the Arts in Oregon. In performance, the audience and I hung the show as I presented Novel Sonics. This is an experience I have crafted that explores the use of long-form soundscape, audio recordings of riddles, prose, poems and chants. During the performance there was a flash thunderstorm. The attendance was small. By the end of the storm, by the end of the recording, we were surrounded by a completed show.

Brainstorms I have for future installations include large freestanding glass frames, where two watercolors are set back to back, arranged so the washi paper may become transparent yet remain vibrant within sunlight. I’d like to create mazes of large watercolor paintings. Reupholstering vintage sofas in watercolor silk, then sealing them in plastic. I’m also designing ways of integrating sound installations of poetry in public spaces.

Avital Oehler: What was your motivation to create with watercolor?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: A personal need was my motivation to paint. When one draws, writes or paints it should be understood that you are, in fact creating new neurological pathways in your brain. Your brain is also mirroring your thinking back to you within the works created. I hadn’t worked with my creativity in such a way before discovering that art making is also self-help. In addition, and quite simply, I wanted to work with water. Working with elements was a welcomed conundrum. Water can be solid. Water is a liquid, a gas. It sustains life. It is aware and that awareness implements its own memory. Working with water, as I may have said before, feels more like collaboration with some primordial intelligence.

Avital Oehler: I love how the washi crinkles and pulls under the weight of the watercolors. Is there significance to that or just a happy coincidence?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: In basic terms, Washi means traditional Japanese paper, wa (和) meaning Japanese and shi (紙) meaning paper. Made using the inner bark of the gampi tree, mulberry, or the mitsumata shrub. The inner bark being the eldest part of the plant. I’m not sure how much significance this holds, but I think to consider it.

Avital Oehler: What is your artistic process in the medium of watercolor?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: My work with water on washi is an intuited pictorial conversation abstracted from the heart, impressions of aself emerging from the history of the body. Painting is focused on understanding art-making as a universal language attuned to an elevated intuition, embodying the present, reorganizing the past, to fine-tune, creating what is possible.

Materially, my work consists of water, liquid watercolor on various weights and scales of washi. I do, but rarely use brushes. With watercolor/ink, I’ll enter pre-wet regions, or inking dry, bringing in afterward sprayed water to activate chemical changes.

The vibrant interlocking of the water and the immediate travel and spray of colors blending into the fibers is innumerable; using stencils, book corners, shoes, eyeglasses, (anything in my grasp) to create familiarity, while water comes in to blur, enhance, or rework shapes anew. The diaphanous, yet strong washi converges the density of liquid watercolor creating polarizing effects: a polychromatic assemblage of complicated line work unraveling.

Using time as medium, adding and mimicking, never subtracting or hiding what could be considered ill or err. Paintings ten at a time, stacking, rotating as they bleed into each other; creating a machineless print make like routine, baring a string of like and unlike imagery.

My watercolor oeuvre averages a scale of 25in x 37in. Mostly of my easel, a found piece of wood: curved, thinly layered rectangular cut imbibes seven years of watercolor and mothering over four hundred works thus far. Water applied to the wood reconstitutes the watercolor left in the board to spawn motifs, so new work is made from remains of a past painting, having an identity, amassing a conversation of its own; culminating into an image that is close to what I had imagined or more discursive in ways that I continue to perplex. Past becomes present, that is, implication of present becomes future. Galvanized by this meditation: the release of judgment to comprehend newly; understanding in renewal, what’s always been. Utilizing the patterns, synchronicity and symmetry experienced when painting with water: this ethos appears to me. I find that a painting will paint itself, as a life will live.

Image from “When my life hands you Rehab, Help Yourself: A Novel Sonic” (2019) performed at Pieter Performance Space

Avital Oehler: Your watercolor creations look at us, address us, or insist on us seeing them. Are directness and honesty something you aim for in your work?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: Southerners say, “If it was a snake it would have bit you!” when you find something you’re looking for that was very close to you, that was right under your nose. I wish I had started practicing art seriously earlier in life. I know it’s pointless to hobbyhorse the thought, but the directness you’re suggesting might actually be a feeling of, at last. Kismet. I, in fact, did get bitten by the snake and have been getting the urge to paint more as I’ve gone on producing these films.

Avital Oehler: Are there other mediums you’d like to explore?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: I think I’m good on exploring mediums for now. Leaning more deeply into what’s happening as all the current mediums come into better concert with one another. For instance, I’m hosting a listening party slash performance; slash kick back, where we’ll do some group creative meditations, a small happening in preparation for the symposium. I’ll recite poems and some people will draw and some will drink and be drawn. We’ll write and dance, who knows what other mediums may arrive. If anything, I’m looking forward to discovering and also activating new elements within performance, a way to encourage the audience to participate, but further hoping they leave with some new reckoning about the potential for art within themselves.

Avital Oehler: How did you start your art practice? What was your artistic coming of age?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: I’m still coming of age in this. I have a lot to learn. That being said, it was arrogance that started my art practice. After leaving respected galleries underwhelmed I started challenging myself to make work that was “better”, to define art, fine art, good art for myself. And like a bunny into a forest of hunters, my ego was shot up quickly, skinned, eaten, and repurposed. I have learned there is no such thing as “better” but there is honesty.  Art making is inherently therapeutic. I had nary an idea of the dynamics that would emerge from me and change me from the inside out. The whole of my art practice has become a nine yearlong session of expressive art therapy.

Avital Oehler: What serves as a reference to your work?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair:  Recently, I’ve been turning to religious iconography. More so imagery of the Black Madonna. She’s said to represent the human soul and resilience and I love that: first female consciously creating life, holding the young male; he is Her will to survive and is naught, without Her. Creation: She returns, though She never left. I experience endless poetry in these images. I have also been listening to lectures by Stephanie Georgieff who wrote The Black Madonna: Mysterious Soul Companion.

Avital Oehler: What are some of your musical influences? 

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: I’ve been listening to Klein, and the songs Slipping and Prologue, on repeat lately. These are off the album Tommy. Her mixes are trance inducing with syncopated frenetic sounds that soothe, however guttural.

Avital Oehler: Your work spans across mediums. Including film, body-based performance, voice-based performance, and watercolor. Is there a theme that connects them, or are they standalone?

Dez’Mon Omega Fair: I think you’re not supposed to say this, but I believe in beauty. I look for it. I try to achieve it. In my painting I wait for the stopping point, on beauty, where the more sparse paintings hush me by screaming, Back off! Beauty becomes a striking and illusive serendipity, unlike the body which is as ephemeral but from which we perform our existence. 

[END OF DIALOGUE]

Avital Oehler conducted and collected this dialogue with Dez’Mon Omega Fair.  She is a self-taught photographer, filmmaker, and writer. Oehler earned her Master’s degree in Forensic Psychology, worked in academia, prisons, and with law enforcement before transitioning to visual art and filmmaking. Her practice lies somewhere between documentary and fiction, toying with notions of reality and place. Oehler’s portfolio is available for review at www.talyoehler.com.

Dez’Mon Omega Fair is an interdisciplinary artist and poet living in Long Beach, California. Fair’s work explores self-reflection, behavioral observation, and the cathartic achieved through brushless ink on traditional Japanese paper, collaborative videopoetry projects, and experimental forms of poetry. He is pioneering a genre he has titled ‘Novel Sonic’, which implores the use of long form audio recordings of poetry readings, large-scale immersive installations, and large-scale performance.

You may view selections of Dez’Mon Omega Fair’s portfolio by going to his website: www.dezmonomegafair.com.  Fair’s videopoetry series After Grace (2019) was presented daily as part of a public exhibit titled Analogue Sun, Digital Moon at The Los Angeles Center for Digital Art. His installation titled At The Cross (2019) was also presented within the same show. This exhibition ran July 11, 2019 thru Aug. 4, 2019 as part of The 2019 Film and Video Poetry Symposium.  Click here for the full 2019 Symposium program.


A .PDF file of this article is available here or within the FVPS digital archive.

PostMortem: Issue VI

The Film and Video Poetry Society is distributing the enigmatic zine PostMortem starting with Issue #6.

“Almost all materials used for the mail art collages referenced in PostMortem were found on the streets of New York, altered, and then repurposed. Much like filmmaking, the process is slow and deliberate: the collection of materials, creating the collage, awaiting postage, etc. and then its put out into the world via mail.”
— Brian Ratigan of Non Films

Softcover pamphlet | 12 pages | color | Series Issue VI | First Print

To purchase please click the button below. Thank you!

The 2018 Film & Video Poetry Symposium Event Program

The 2018 Film and Video Poetry Symposium program is available for purchase. Please become a caretaker of an original, mint condition, and very special document created for our inaugural year.

Printed on high quality recycled paper and protected by a heavy cover stock. Printer Louis Luyeye produced 300 copies of this gem on March 9, 2018. Currently there are less than 100 remaining in our possession.

Our goal is to disseminate the program to those who would like to hold a record of the event. FVPS is also making the pamphlet available to fund raise in support of our expansion into independent press.

The 2018 Film and Video Poetry Symposium program is printed in black and white, has staple binding, and contains 24 pp. Each film block is described and includes the title of each film, poet, artist, filmmaker, total run times, and a summary for each of the 83 films selected that year.

Softcover pamphlet | 12 pages | English | First and Final Edition

语言与雨 | A Dialogue With Filmmaker Susan Lin

image from the film Scenes from a Film i’ll Never Make (2016) written & directed by Susan Lin

Susan Lin is an inter-media visual artist, filmmaker, and poet. Lin graduated from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts with a degree in Media Arts & Practice. Lin’s intersecting identities and experiences as Chinese American and non-gender conforming guide their work and academic interests. Their films address race and gender and also how these factors relate to phenomenology and diaspora. Lin is interested in the way people understand the concept of “home” and how those with marginalized identities find "home" in countries, spaces, and institutions that are not of their own. They practice in both fields of essay film and poetry film.



FVPS: May we begin with talking about La Nouvelle Vague and The Left Bank?

Susan Lin: It’s interesting to begin the conversation this way, because when I was younger I was really fixated on the French New Wave/ The Left Bank filmmakers. Especially Godard in the beginning; I liked that he was clever and that so many filmmakers I loved were inspired by him including Chantal Akerman, who is arguably my earliest and biggest cinematic influence. I don’t live a very interesting life (2015) is actually what I consider the first video I’ve ever made; and when I made it I was thinking a lot about Godard and Akerman.

I admired the ethos of the French New Wave filmmakers; I liked their style, attitude, and determination that they could make the films they wanted to see with small crews & budgets. What left the biggest impact on me was their pushback on narrative. It was really refreshing to know as a new filmmaker that I didn’t have to write stories with a beginning, middle, end and that in fact, maybe work that didn’t adhere strictly to those values were more interesting to me anyways.

My favorite French New Wave filmmaker is Agnès Varda. There’s tenderness to her work, a playful curiosity, and a knowing sadness (or maybe it’s wisdom). Also compared to male French New Wave filmmakers, Varda knew how to be kind with how she looked through her camera at the world.

FVPS: Varda’s work flows between documentary, short film, narrative, and feature length. The convergence of genre and format in such a manner has been referred to as research cinema by film scholar Richard Peña. Are you satisfied with the categories or genre descriptions that may apply to your work?

Susan Lin: I’ve given up on categorizing my work in any particular way, at least for myself. Knowing genres and categories are useful for knowing how to participate in the dialogue about video/film/image but not very useful for my own practice. For a while I thought a lot about the term inter-cultural cinema from Laura U. Marks’ book The Skin of The Film and I can definitely see that some may categorize my work as inter-cultural cinema due to my explorations of my experience of diaspora, but I don’t think any specific label is all encompassing. I go where my heart and research take me. Ultimately I find that I’m constantly evolving and it’s always interesting to see what other people see in my work or how they try to understand it.

image from the film Scenes from a Film i’ll Never Make (2016) written & directed by Susan Lin

FVPS: Do you practice a creative process before you begin working with a camera?

Susan Lin: My creative process is very physical; there’s not much preparation. I can be a very impatient person, especially with video work. I feel something in me (a movement, a string of words, an image) that demands to be “physicalized”. I usually pick up a camera right away to see what the world looks like when I am moving with that camera in hand. There’s a quote from Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders that I think of when I’m looking through a lens at the world; Marion says in one of her inner monologues: “I look up and the world emerges before my eyes and fills my heart.”

So, I pick up my camera. I press record. And then I look at the world through my camera and let it fill my heart. Then however I feel, I push the frame a little this way or that way. It’s really fun for me. And also problematic in that whenever I would want to work with a cinematographer, they would have to be okay with me asking to just experiment with an image until it “feels right”.  And sometimes it just doesn’t feel right until I get my own hands on the camera and push it around. 

FVPS: Sound Design is a production element that is distinct in all of your films.

Susan Lin: Yes! I think a lot about sound vs noise vs music. Putting music in my work never felt right to me- almost like it was disingenuous. Yet when I first started watching films, before I began to think about video as a medium, I felt very lost. Most movies have a soundtrack of some sort but I could neither find music to put in work that 1) I liked 2) I could afford. So I worked with what I had: natural sound, background humming, and people’s voices. Actually a film that did a great job of not using a musical score was Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire. When there is no musical score, the sound of everything else becomes the score.

Sound design is actually one of my favorite parts of making work. I love collecting sounds and I love listening to what’s around in a room or space. Collecting and designing sounds for my work is a great way that my work forces me to pay attention. I think what I love the most about video making is just that: paying attention. There’s a great Simone Weil quote I’ve been thinking about a lot: “Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.”

I also feel like I’ve never had a very strong relationship to music and I wonder if it’s because I grew up in an immigrant family or with a single mom who never had time for music or any other kind of art. The first time I heard my mom put on a CD in the house was when I was home on break from college. I heard her singing too and I remember being so stunned. I’ve been thinking a lot about that; the sound of my mom humming and singing for the first time in my life. I hope I can include something like that feeling in my work soon.

image from the film Co-op Part I (2016) directed by Susan Lin

FVPS: Share more with us about why you may not have a strong relationship with music.

Susan Lin: Somehow I became afraid of music, and what other people would think of the music I listened to or not. Unlike images I felt like music didn’t leave me anything to hide behind. But recently I’ve started trying to actively listen to music again and it’s been amazing. But I still don’t think I want to overlay tracks of music in my video work. The music must be generated from the world of the images I am showing. 

My friends have such strong opinions about what kind of music they love. I remember talking to somebody about not having a music taste a few years ago, and they told me: maybe one day when I am old, I’ll turn on the radio and hear something and suddenly understand what everyone’s been going on about all this time. I’m looking forward to that day. I expect my work will change drastically.

FVPS: There is purposeful use of silence within your filmmaking.  A realization that forms while viewing I Don’t Live a Very Interesting life is that even though there is no dialogue and very few elements that create sound, the film is not quiet.  You present an absence as presence. Silence plays a role within the journey you create and as time passes the minimalistic audio design becomes thunderous.

Susan Lin: Silence is what we hear when we pay attention. I feel that actually video is the best way to compose silence. And that’s always been exciting to me. I’m a bit sad I’m an image maker and not a musician but when I get to experiment with silence in a video work I feel very close to making music. I compose silence first, and then everything else.

FVPS: Can subtitling and screen text achieve a similar emotional representation as silence has in your films?

Susan Lin: Subtitling and audible silence are very different. They point to different kinds of absences. As of the moment subtitling is really interesting to me. In some ways, subtitles mirror my experience growing up between languages and culture. I understand some things and misunderstand others; in this space of misunderstanding I come to my own version of the story, of the world. I have deliberately mistranslated subtitles in different work, to play with this idea of understanding or the value of what is an “accurate” or “true” translation.

FVPS: Could visual language communicate and express your life experience more accurately than a spoken language?

Susan Lin: No, I don’t think so. Languages are systems of thinking and ways of knowing so each language yields its own versions of the same story. I wouldn’t say one is more accurate than the other.

image from the film今天到了23岁 // Today I Arrive at Age 23 (2019) a collaborative project by Susan Lin

FVPS: May we ask your name in Cantonese?

Susan Lin: The area of China my family is from doesn’t speak Cantonese, but Fukienese. My name in Mandarin is 林星语. The name means Lin (my last name which means forest) 星 which means star, and 语 which means language. There’s actually a story behind it in that my dad (allegedly) had a dream the night I was born that there were so many stars falling from the sky he couldn’t collect them all. So my name became 星雨 initially, which means star rain, but then he decided the second character 雨 (rain) would change to 语 (language). Why? I’m not sure, but I’ve always suspected my inclination for poetry came from my dad.

FVPS: Do you speak additional languages?

The other language I speak in my family besides Mandarin is the Fukien Dialect (growing up I called it Fuzhou-nese) , which is specific to the region of Fuzhou and surrounding southern areas. It’s really quite different from Mandarin and people who haven’t grown up with it really can’t understand it at all. In my films I always try to address growing up speaking (or not speaking fluently) different languages. I have experimented with subtitles, translation, mistranslation, etc. I’m interested in how language, memory, and emotion intersect; how I don’t have to be fluent in Mandarin or Fukien Dialect to know the feeling behind words and conversations. As I can’t really write in Mandarin and there is no written Fukien Dialect, I have often said that knowing how to speak these languages has been like learning to sing a song through different melodies but being unable to read the music.

FVPS: When your films are watched centuries from now who can you imagine attending the presentation? What do you suppose these viewers may learn?

Susan Lin: No clue who would be watching my films centuries from now. I wonder if people will still watch movies and videos as we know them. I’m interested in how our methods of representations will have evolved by then. Maybe it will be screened at some event for enthusiasts of vintage cinema. The viewers would learn a lot about me.  I think the viewers would learn about the details of my life, of the things that I carried, of the things I could not get over, of the people and places I loved and the world I dreamed of building.

FVPS: If you were allowed direct contact with your ancestors what topics would you choose to speak to them about and why?

Susan Lin: I’m not as fixated on what I’d talk to them about as much as how I would be able to talk to them. I wonder, would my ancestors and I be able to understand each other if I’m communicating in English, broken Mandarin, Fukien Dialect? I guess I haven’t thought about it much. I’ve been much more fixated on learning to communicate with my own parents.

I’m not that interested in speaking with my familial ancestors. I think this is because I feel that I am already in communion with certain writers, filmmakers, and artists I admire by consuming their works. Those people feel like ancestors to me. I look to them for wisdom and for ways to survive.

image from the film I Don’t Live a Very Interesting Life (2015) directed by Susan Lin

FVPS: Are you purposely selecting self personal areas to process in your films? or do the topics examined come about without preparation?

Susan Lin: Looking at a camera through the world is one way I have of making sense of everything. I haven’t quite figured out whether it is the sharing of the work or the creation of it that motivates me most. In the times I’ve acted in my own work I do acknowledge that knowing I am performing for an unknown public brings me some kind of satisfaction. Like I am bringing someone into my most private thoughts, that I have an opportunity to explain myself somehow. I wonder why I am so fixated on that: explaining myself or being understood by others. I think I still carry a lot of shame with me about myself, the legacy of a difficult childhood.

FVPS: Do you experience catharsis when making a film?

Susan Lin: I do, briefly. When I am working on something, life seems to glow with meaning and purpose. When I make films I feel expansive. Like there is enough room for everything that is: from the joyous to the painful to the mundane. I’m kinder when I am making films. I think filmmaking feels close to some kind of forgiveness.

[END OF DIALOGUE]

You may view selections of Susan Lin’s portfolio by going to their website: www.susanlin.work. Susan Lin’s essay film I don't live a very interesting life (2015) was presented daily as part of a public exhibit titled Analogue Sun, Digital Moon at The Los Angeles Center for Digital Art.

This exhibition ran July 11, 2019 thru Aug. 4, 2019 as part of The 2019 Film and Video Poetry Symposium.
Click here for the full 2019 symposium program.

A .PDF file of this article is available here or within the FVPS digital archive.

On Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) and FVPS programming

FVPS Deadline Extended and The Symposium Postponed until Fall 2020

As the COVID-19 crisis continues to force public events to cancel or postpone, The Film and Video Poetry Society encourages our peer organizations to stand with us and take to the difficult responsibility to prioritize public health. Let us make our stand publicly for not only those who participate with our platforms, but for those within the total of our communities.  The Film and Video Poetry Society commends the programmers, organizers, and coordinators that have made public statements in an alliance to safety and awareness. We also commend the organizations that have made the difficult but responsible choice to cancel or postpone their events.

With this in mind, The Film and Video Poetry Society will postpone our 3rd annual symposium; we are hopeful, and are committed to rescheduling for fall 2020. Submissions remain open and our deadline extended to August 3, 2020.

We apologize for not being swift with this announcement and must surrender to the shortcomings of our mission statement and the experience necessary to understand our role during an international crisis.  Our platform is now consistently and directly in contact with public health officials in several cities. FVPS has pledged to follow ethical guidelines regarding rescheduling and postponements.

This is a blow to our developing culture and a challenge to our mission statement. This international crisis will have ramifications for not only festivals and artists; but for nonprofits and companies who support them.  We anticipate the practice of new business and health awareness protocols within theaters, with partnered film societies, sponsors, and arts organizations around the world.

We are deeply saddened for everyone whose lives and careers are being disrupted by this pandemic, especially the poets, educators, filmmakers, and artists who are at the very heart of our platform. We are also encouraged by the countless supporters who have seized this moment to champion independent media.

The Film and Video Poetry Society will continue to pursue new and experimental ways to support and connect artists and audiences online. We look forward to this experience strengthening our return to the cinemas and theaters around the globe.

Most importantly, we would like to emphasize that art cannot always be made for entertainment purposes.  Sometimes art must take a step away from self-process.  Art must sometimes spark a creative fire for others in need, to purposely foster awareness and compassion, bring together opposing cultures or ideals, and help us find healing, purpose, and understanding.

The Film and Video Poetry Society has deep praise for those who made films while in exile for their thoughts or beliefs, for those who made art during war, who smuggled canvases or photographs across violent boarders, for those who wrote words or music for the hearts and the spirit of man, as they were kept confined or separate from their loved ones.  We are grateful to you for this opportunity and are reminded of higher missions.

Be safe. Stay at home. Follow the recommendations from the health officials in your township, and above all remain hopeful, educated, and aware.

Thank you for reading our statement regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and our commitment to rescheduling to Fall 2020.

Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) FVPS Announcement

FVPSociety’s Outlook Regarding COVID-19 and our 2020 Programming

Dear family and friends,

As the COVID-19 crisis continues to force public events to cancel or postpone, The Film and Video Poetry Society encourages our peer organizations to stand with us and take to the difficult responsibility to prioritize public health. Let us make our stand publicly for not only those who participate with our platforms, but for those within the total of our communities.  The Film and Video Poetry Society commends the programmers, organizers, and coordinators that have made public statements in an alliance to safety and awareness. We also commend the organizations that have made the difficult but responsible choice to cancel or postpone their events.

With this in mind, The Film and Video Poetry Society will postpone our 3rd annual symposium; we are hopeful, and are committed to rescheduling for fall 2020. Submissions remain open and our deadline extended to August 3, 2020.

We apologize for not being swift with this announcement and must surrender to the shortcomings of our mission statement and the experience necessary to understand our role during an international crisis.  Our platform is now consistently and directly in contact with public health officials in several cities. FVPS has pledged to follow ethical guidelines regarding rescheduling and postponements.

This is a blow to our developing culture and a challenge to our mission statement. This international crisis will have ramifications for not only festivals and artists; but for nonprofits and companies who support them.  We anticipate the practice of new business and health awareness protocols within theaters, with partnered film societies, sponsors, and arts organizations around the world.

We are deeply saddened for everyone whose lives and careers are being disrupted by this pandemic, especially the poets, educators, filmmakers, and artists who are at the very heart of our platform. We are also encouraged by the countless supporters who have seized this moment to champion independent media.

The Film and Video Poetry Society will continue to pursue new and experimental ways to support and connect artists and audiences online. We look forward to this experience strengthening our return to the cinemas and theaters around the globe.

Most importantly, we would like to emphasize that art cannot always be made for entertainment purposes.  Sometimes art must take a step away from self-process.  Art must sometimes spark a creative fire for others in need, to purposely foster awareness and compassion, bring together opposing cultures or ideals, and help us find healing, purpose, and understanding.

The Film and Video Poetry Society has deep praise for those who made films while in exile for their thoughts or beliefs, for those who made art during war, who smuggled canvases or photographs across violent boarders, for those who wrote words or music for the hearts and the spirit of man, as they were kept confined or separate from their loved ones.  We are grateful to you for this opportunity and are reminded of higher missions.


With thanks and solidarity,
The Film and Video Poetry Society

FVPS 2018 Promotional Trailer

The 2018 Film and Video Poetry Symposium has programmed over 80 films from more than 20 countries. The promotional video above contains audio and visual clips gathered from each of the films selected. This trailer was activated primarily on social media and appeared on several online platforms during our initial 2018 promotional campaign. For our screenings, musical artist and percussionist Pale Ale provided a wildly original music composition to replace the audio soundscape heard above. This second iteration was projected on Saturday, April 28, 2018 before the introduction to Film Block 1: Pure Mercury.

For more information regarding the films, poets, and artists who are referenced in the FVPS2018 promotional trailer please click here to view The 2018 Film and Video Poetry Symposium Program and Schedule in full.

Lynne Sachs | Tip Of My Tongue

Image from the film Tip of My Tongue (2017) directed by. Lynne Sachs

Tip of My Tongue (80 min. 2017)
a film by Lynne Sachs

To celebrate her 50th birthday, filmmaker Lynne Sachs gathers together other people, men and women who have lived through precisely the same years but come from places like Iran or Cuba or Australia or the Lower East Side, not Memphis, Tennessee where Sachs grew up. She invites 12 fellow New Yorkers – born across several continents in the 1960s – to spend a weekend with her making a movie. Together they discuss some of the most salient, strange, and revealing moments of their lives in a brash, self-reflexive examination of the way in which uncontrollable events outside our own domestic universe impact who we are. As director and participant, Sachs, who wrote her own series of 50 poems for every year of her life, guides her collaborators across the landscape of their memories. They move from the Vietnam War protests to the Anita Hill hearings to the Columbine Shootings to Occupy Wall Street. Using the backdrop of the horizon as it meets the water in each of NYC’s five boroughs as well as abstracted archival material, TIP OF MY TONGUE becomes an activator in the resurrection of complex, sometimes paradoxical reflections. Traditional timelines are replaced by a multi-layered, cinematic architecture that both speaks to and visualizes the nature of historical expression. Immediately after the film Lynne Sachs will engage in a public dialogue with the audience.

Screening | Tip of My Tongue (80 minutes, 2017)
Sunday July 21, 2019 Doors open at 1045am. Film begins at 11am. There is no cost for admission. Light refreshments served.

Maysles Documentary Center
343 Malcolm X Boulevard | New York, NY 10027
Filmmaker Lynne Sachs will speak about her film Tip of My Tongue after this screening. Please see event below.

TIP OF MY TONGUE | A Public Dialogue & Poetry Workshop with filmmaker Lynne Sachs
Sunday July 21, 2019 Talkback begins at 1230pm | Immediately following the screening of the film TIP OF MY TONGUE
(Please See Event Above)

Our cornerstone guest for the 2019 symposium is Lynne Sachs. Sachs’ work with documentary, poetry film and the essay film is consistently avant-guard. In this workshop, Sachs will be in open dialogue regarding her film “Tip of My Tongue” (80 min. 2017), which accentuates the poetry and essay film within its structure.  She will also read from her new book Year by Year Poems (Tender Buttons Press, 2019). Sachs will further guide the workshop discourse through an exploration into the hybridization of poetry film and essay film, and the meaning of these genres individually as well as combined.  After screening her film, Sachs will ask participants a question as a prompt for writing a poem: How has one moment in your life been affected by a public event beyond your control? 

Lynne Sachs, graduate of Brown University receiving a BA in history, inspired by the works of Bruce Conner, who would become her mentor, and Maya Deren. She is a recipient of the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in film and video, collaborated with Chris Marker on the 2007 remake of his 1972 film “Three Cheers for the Whale”, and co-edited the 2009 Millennium Film Journal issue #51 titled “Experiments in Documentary”.  Sachs’ work has established support with fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, as well as residencies at the Experimental Television Center and The MacDowell Colony. Sachs’ films have screened at the Museum of Modern Art, Pacific Film Archive, the Sundance Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, and Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema.

Maysles Documentary Center
343 Malcolm X Boulevard | New York, NY 10027
There is no cost for admission. Light refreshments served!

FVPS2019 Venues | Los Angeles | New York | Moscow

The 2019 Film and Video Poetry Symposium is proud to present screenings and events within 5 venues and 3 cities internationally this year.

THE LITTLE THEATER SANTA MONICA
12420 Santa Monica Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90025

THE LOS ANGELES CENTER FOR DIGITAL ART
104 E 4th Street
Los Angeles, California 90013

PAM RESIDENCIES
5810 1/2 N Figueroa Street 2nd Floor
Los Angeles, California 90042

CINEMA KOSMOS MOSCOW
Prospekt Mira Avenue, 109
Moscow, Russia 129515

THE SHEEN CENTER FOR THOUGHT AND CULTURE
18 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012

Maysles Documentary Center
343 Malcolm X Boulevard
New York, NY 10027

ARTS ON SITE NYC
12 Saint Marks Place
New York, New York 10003

Achieved with the generous support from Poetry Bridge Moscow and executive director Anatoliy Belyy, The Maysels Documentary Center with Executive Director Dale Dobson, and PAM Residencies’ Executive Director Brian Getnick. Full schedule and programming to be announced.

FVPS 2019 | Full Schedule and Program

Image from the film THE LAST KNOWN PERSON (2019) director. Pat van Boeckel poet. Ester Naomi Perquin | Image of Hans-Georg Henke photographed by John Florea.

The Film and Video Poetry Symposium | July 12 thru August 3, 2019 | MOSCOW · LOS ANGELES · NEW YORK CITY

The 2019 Film and Video Poetry Symposium has programmed over 30 international films to be screened in 3 cities. The symposium will feature 9 guest speakers, educational workshops, poetry readings, and a gallery exhibit celebrating the work of 18 artists and poets. Attendance will experience poetry films, performing arts, videopoetry, experimental media, live readings, art installations, essay films, and films from the avant-garde.

THERE ARE NO NEUTRALS HERE | Film Screening and Poetry Reading
Friday, July 12, 2019 doors at 7pm. Our program begins at 730pm.
$5 - 10 suggested donation. No one turned away for lack of funds.

PERILOUS EXPERIMENT (media artist. Ruth Hayes, U.S., 2016)
MOTHER (d. Graeme Maguire, p. Tim Atkins, U.K., 2015)
CHILDREN ARE THE ORGASM OF THE WORLD (animator. Frances Haszard, poet. Hera Lindway Bird, U.K., 2016)
THE FAMILY HOME (d. Chad Attie, U.S., 2017)
OPERATION CASTLE (d. Filip Gabriel Pudło, Poland, 2013)
BLUE SILVER (d. Jean Sanchez, Spain, 2019)
THE LAST KNOWN PERSON (d. Pat Van Boeckel p. Ester Naomi Perquin, Netherlands, 2019)
I AM THE HUNTER (director & poet. Isabella Obel, Italy., 2019)
EXILES (d. Amirul Rajiv, set to the poetry of Areseny Tarkovsky, Bangladesh, 2017)
BITTER FRUIT (d. Avital Oehler, set to the poetry of Abel Meeropol, U.S., 2019)

THERE ARE NO NEUTRALS HERE
live poetry reading of original work presented by Dez’Mon Omega Fair & Sarah Morris
additional text read from. STAN BRAKHAGE - Telling Time | O.M. BAKKE - When Children Became People

PAM RESIDENCIES
5810 1/2 N Figueroa Street 2nd Floor
Los Angeles, California 90042

730pm - 930pm

Image from the film HOUSE FOR THE AUTUMN EQUINOX (1992) written & directed by Kristy Edmonds & Helen Lessick.

ANALOGUE SUN, DIGITAL MOON | FVPS Opening Reception and Gallery Event
Saturday July 13, 2019 doors at 600pm. Light snacks and beverages will be served.
There is no cost for admission

Analogue Sun, Digital Moon is the FVPS 2019 principle exhibition and opens on July 13, 2019. This gallery program is comprised of digital art, augmented reality inspired by poetry, video art, poetry films, essay films, live poetry readings, and media installations commenting on the convergence of the analogue and the digital. The goal of this exhibit is to not only present both poetry and media accomplished through exceptional artistry and perspective, but to also bring the poets, filmmakers, video artists, and new media makers into a public dialogue focused on the dynamic mergence of these practices.

ANALOGUE SUN, DIGITAL MOON

REGINA JOSÉ GALINDO . DANIEL LIEGHTON . BILL BARMINSKI . KAZMIER MAŚLANKA . JODY ZELLEN . LYNNE SACHS
LILI WHITE . PAULO JAVIER . MARLON RIGGS . ANNA LIEGHTON . SUSAN LIN . HELEN LESSICK. KRISTY EDMONDS
RG CANTALUPO . ERIC DUVIDIER . SARAH MORRIS . DEZ’MON OMEGA FAIR . SEAN HANLEY


THE LOS ANGELES CENTER FOR DIGITAL ART
104 E 4th Street
Los Angeles, California 90013

6:00pm - 9:00pm

Saturday July 13, 2019 is opening night and reception from 600pm to 900pm. Light snacks and beverages will be served. Analogue Sun, Digital Moon runs from July 13, 2019 thru August 3, 2019. Gallery is open Wednesday thru Saturday 12noon - 500pm. Closed on holidays. There is no cost for admission.

Image from the film SELAH (2017) director. Maya Cryor poet. Jayme Meri Grant

THE FILM AND VIDEO POETRY SYMPOSIUM IN MOSCOW
Sunday July 14, 2019 Program begins at 7:00pm (MOSCOW STANDARD TIME)
There is no cost for admission

The Film and Video Poetry Symposium will present the following films with Kinopoesia, a cultural and educational project founded by actor and poet Anatoly Beliy. The platform specializes in the development and distribution of poetry film and videopoetry in Russia. The Film and Video Poetry Symposium created the film program below to be presented to the Kinopoesia community in Moscow. The program is curated from the full body of films FVPS presented during the 2018 symposium. This effort is a cultural exchange and deliberate engagement between our platforms to further develop an international dialogue regarding poetry film and videopoetry.

DOG DAZE (director & poet. Ian Gibbins, Australia, 2017)
MOVING SOUTHWARK (director & poet. Jevan Chowdhury, U.K., 2016)
OCEANIK (d. Lucia Sellars, p. Nia Davies, U.K., 2017)
DEEP SEE (writer & director. Virginia Lee Montgomery, U.S., 2016)
TALKING SKULL (d. David Asher Brook, p. Hanna Brook, Australia, 2015)
F*CKING HIM (directors. Adrian Garcia Gomez & C.O. Moed, USA., 2015)
JOHNNY THINKS (d. Malcolm Rumbles, p. Sam Small, U.K., 2017)
WHA_I_l_OLD YOU A __ORY IN A LANGUAGE I _AN _EAR (director & poet. Liza Sylvestre, U.S., 2015)
DRUNKEN LAUNDRY DAY WITH CHARLES BUKOWSKI (d. Fiona Tinwei Lam, p. Henry Doyle, Canada, 2016)
STANZA (director. Alicja Jasina, set to the poem written by Aldous Huxley, U.S., 2017)
X - FILM (d. Iñaki Sagastume, p. Cyr. Spain, 2015)
SELAH (d. Maya Cryor, p. Jayme Meri Grant, U.S., 2017)
CAPRICORN (director & poet. Greg Budanov, Russia, 2017)
TO ALYA (writer & director. Ivan Oganesov, Russia, 2017)


CINEMA KOSMOS MOSCOW
Prospekt Mira Avenue, 109
Moscow, Russia 129515

7:00pm - 9:00pm

Image from the film The Earth (2016) directed by Aksinya Gog and set to the poetry of Boris Pasternak.

10 POETRY FILMS FROM MOSCOW | Film Screening and Poetry Reading
Sunday, July 14, 2019 Program begins at 3:00pm
$5 - 10 suggested donation. No one turned away for lack of funds.

The Film and Video Poetry Symposium will present the following Russian language films produced by Kinopoesia. These ten films have been selected by FVPS from the Kinopoesia catalog and represent Russia’s prominent poetry films. The majority of the films will be projected without english subtitling as the hosts will lead the audience to interpret, review and discuss each film. The screening will be accompanied by poetry readings in both the Russian and English language. This screening celebrates the works of the Russian poetry masters and the further development of international exchange.

I LOVED YOU (d. Victor Vokhmincev, set to the poetry of Alexander Pushkin, Russia, 2016)
VIOLEN & A LITTLE NERVOUS (d. Ivan Oganesov, set to the poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky, Russia, 2016)
THE EARTH (d. Aksinya Gog, set to the poetry of Boris Pasternak, Russia, 2016)
POEMS ABOUT THE BIG BALLET (d. Svetlana Chernikova, set to the poetry of Inna Zagraevskaya, Russia, 2017)
WHAT WAS IT? (d. Ilya Yepishchev set to the poetry of Danill Kharms, Russia, 2017)
RASH, ACCORDION! (d. Ivan Oganesov, set to the poetry of Sergei Denisov, Russia, 2019)
WHAT IS HAPPINESS? (d. Svetlana Koroleva, based on the poetry of Nikolai Aseev, Russia, 2018)
JOYCE (d. Mikhail Larionov, set to the poetry of Aleksey Pleshcheyev, Russia, 2017)
HE LOVED (d. Anna Simakove, set to the poetry of Anna Akhmatova, Russia, 2018)
DREAMS OF LIVING IN A ZOO (d. Svetlana Chernikova, Animation. Francesco Sons, p. Konstantin Khabensky, Russia, 2018)


10 POETRY FILMS FROM MOSCOW
live poetry readings presented by Jesse Russell Brooks & RG Cantalupo
additional text read from. ISAAC BABEL - Guy de Maupassant | VLADIMIR NABOKOV - The Art of Translation

THE LITTLE THEATER SANTA MONICA
12420 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90025

3:00pm - 4:50pm

2019 GUEST SPEAKERS & ADDITIONAL PROGRAMMING

Poetry, Privacy, and Permission to Enter
Thursday July 18, 2019 Program begins at 1:00pm.
There is no cost for admission.

Focused on Eshel’s award winning documentary film Maria (2016) about a young immigrant’s struggle to find her identity in New York City, Eshel’s film provides a lens for the audience to observe modern images of poverty in New York that often remain well disguised.  The film chronicles the transformation of the young poet as she successfully finds equilibrium with cultural barriers, mental health realities, family dysfunction, social isolation, and the fears that accompany coming of age.  Maria finds structure in her life and society through the power of writing poetry.

FVPS will be in dialogue with filmmaker Shiri P. Eshel and poet Maria Valle regarding their journey together making this film.  This event will feature a movie clip, new poetry work read by Valle, and details regarding the production of the film. We will examine the filmmaker’s concept of poetry within the documentary genre as well as learn how Maria and her family processed the revealing nature of this project and the poems written for it.

SHIRI PAAMONY ESHEL, born and raised in Israel, citizen of Angola, and current resident of New York City, Eshel received her Masters in Documentary Film at the NY School of Visual Arts. Eshel garnered 20 years of experience as a journalist and content provider specializing in the promotion of African culture and a variety of related social projects in both Israel and Africa.

Maria (2016) has won several prizes including the prestigious Best Short Documentary - Nepal International Film Festival in 2018.

Duration: 1 hour and 30 minutes

THE SHEEN CENTER FOR THOUGHT AND CULTURE
18 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012

Poetry, Privacy, and Permission to Enter takes place in room: Modern Studio

Outlining ASELF | An Expressive Poetry Workshop
Thursday, July 18, 2019 Program begins at 3:30pm
There is no cost for admission.

Fair will utilize therapeutic and expressive art exercises such as reflective writing and embodied storytelling to engage participants in a self-expressive poetry workshop. Through the creative explorations of body movement, the human voice, and free writing, participants will howl, shake, jump, sketch, speak out, and review important life moments and experience.  Participants will reference this internal material to compose a poem representing the self-image, and create a self-portrait. (Paper and pens provided.)

DEZ’MON OMEGA FAIR is the 2019 Film and Video Poetry Symposium Poet in Residence.  He is a practicing interdisciplinary artist and poet living in Long Beach, California. Fair’s work explores self-reflection, behavioral observation, and the cathartic, achieved through brushless ink on traditional Japanese paper, collaborative film projects, as well as experimental forms of poetry. He is pioneering works in a new genre he has titled novel sonic, which implores the use of long form audio recordings of readings paired with public performance. These showings are set within large-scale immersive installations, which consist of figurative watercolor and poesy sourced from personal geographic and emotional histories.

Duration: 1 hour and 30 minutes

THE SHEEN CENTER FOR THOUGHT AND CULTURE
18 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012

Outlining ASELF takes place in room: Modern Studio

OPEN GENRE | Modes of Experimental Media
Friday, July 19, 2019 Program begins at 1:00pm
There is no cost for admission.

Alex Cole will lead a group discussion focused on trends in experimental video making and how these new directions inform self-image, influence media, and genre.  He will explore the definitions assigned to video-poetry, poetryfilm, video art, and experimental filmmaking and how these associations relate with various progressive states of media. The goal is to activate the audience through dialogue in an investigation of how and why genre is applied to assorted creative approaches. Cole will share the following films as reference:

· THE FAMILY HOME (d. Chad Attie, U.S., 2017)
· OPERATION CASTLE (d. Filip Gabriel Pudło, Poland, 2013)
· WHA_I_l_OLD YOU A __ORY IN A LANGUAGE I _AN _EAR (media artist. Liza Sylvestre, U.S., 2015)

ALEX COLE, received a BFA from the Expanded Media Program at Alfred University, a Bachelor of Art in Film Studies and Video Production from Rochester Institute of Technology, and a Masters in Depth Psychology and Media Art from Pacifica Graduate Institute~ Alex is a practicing video artist, university professor, and media theorist.  He owns Sun Echo Media in Rochester NY which is a post and production facility providing media services for a diverse client base. He is a guest curator with The Los Angeles Center for Digital Arts and produces media for fine art programs internationally. Alex is currently a lecturer at Alfred State College in the digital media and animation department as well as an Adjunct Professor at Syracuse University within the Department of Transmedia.

Duration: 1 hour and 30 minutes

THE SHEEN CENTER FOR THOUGHT AND CULTURE
18 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012

OPEN GENRE takes place in room: Vibrant Studio

IMAGINING BACKWARDS | A Conversation with Experimental Filmmaker Lili White
Friday, July 19, 2019 Program begins at 3:30pm
There is no cost for admission.

The Film and Video Poetry Symposium is proud to present a public dialogue with artist and experimental filmmaker Lili White.  Since 1978 Lili has been exploring origins of myth, primacy of memory, exercises in self and counter self-imagining, and dreaming through her work with 8mm film, 16mm film, sound, and video. She is a fixture in the history of avant-garde filmmaking, and throughout her career she has maintained a dedication to experimental work created by women filmmakers. FVPS will screen several short works by White while delving into topics that include in-camera editing, “automatic” editing, and authentic movement technique. We will examine reoccurring elements in images found in her films and talk about the importance of production audio and color. Our program will screen and discuss the following work:

· EVERYTHING, BUT (d. Lili White, U.S., 2006)
· I CHING TRIGRAM: MOUNTAIN BOUND (d. Lili White, U.S., 2006)
· CRACKED (d. Lili White, U.S., 2006)
· GOOD BYE EARTH, GOODBYE SKY (d. Lili White, U.S., 2006)

LILI WHITE, received a BFA University of Pennsylvania and is a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art with a four-year study in painting. White is a practicing performing artist, experimental filmmaker, media artist, writer, and producer. Her films and selected videos have exhibited with the Shanghai’s Duloun Museum of Contemporary Art, the American Museum of the Moving Image, the Museum of American Art in Philadelphia, Newhouse Center Of Contemporary Art, Millennium Film Workshop, and The Jersey City Museum.  In 2010 White developed the platform ANOTHER EXPERIMENT BY WOMEN which promotes and screens experimental films quarterly at Anthology Film Archives. AXW has since become a Fractured Atlas Fiscally Sponsored Campaign and a recipient of the LMCC’s MCAT Arts Fund Grant.

Duration: 1 hour and 30 minutes

THE SHEEN CENTER FOR THOUGHT AND CULTURE
18 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012

IMAGINING BACKWARDS takes place in room: Vibrant Studio

MOTION POETRY | A Brief Discourse on Poetic Imagery in the Cinema
Saturday, July 20, 2019 Program begins at 1:00pm.
There is no cost for admission.

An orator may stun an audience with their words, carefully selecting the timing of speech, knowing the depth of a word, and instinctually finding a precise tone.  Great poets win favor through readings, recordings, and publications, though words are not necessary for communication.  Our written language is not essential for connection. In this workshop, Brian Ratigan will guide a group discussion on poetic imagery and share 5 short films that present methods of poetic communication.

· Applied Pressure (d. Kelly Sears, 2018)
· Jar (d. Raven Jackson, 2017)
· Underbelly Up (d. Josh Yates, 2016)
· Violently (I) (d. Sara Suarez, 2017)
· Saw/Ate Sad Bird (d. Lauren Flinner, 2019)

Brian Ratigan is an award-winning animator and director of stop motion films and experimental work. He is the founder of Non Films, a label for ephemeral animation and experimental cinema in New York City. Ratigan is established in the film festival circuit as a programmer and jury for Slamdance Film Festival, Chicago Underground Film Festival, and the London Indie Festival. Ratigan serves as Director of Animation for Kumar Pictures, co-founded Atlanta production company Sugartooth Group, and co-manages the online platform Chaotic Cinema.
 

Duration: 1 hour and 30 minutes

THE SHEEN CENTER FOR THOUGHT AND CULTURE
18 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012

MOTION POETRY takes place in room: Vibrant Studio

Videopoetry 2050 | An Exercise in World Building
Saturday, July 20, 2019 Program begins at 3:30pm.
There is no cost for admission.

Tony Patrick will lead a group discussion through an introductory world building exercise designed to conceptualize the cultural purpose and technological influence of video poetry in the year 2050.  World building is the process of constructing an imaginary world or fictional universe based on real world cultural issues, necessities, and limitations. The results from this exercise will be compared with modern perspectives, social structures, and methods of resolution that are active with in the communities of those participating with the workshop.

TONY PATRICK, Graduate of the Dramatic Writing Program from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Tony Patrick is an award winning writer and educator. His film Black Card has aired on HBO as well as Cinemax. In addition, his comic book series X’ED is published by Black Mask Studios. Tony currently is the co-writer of DC Comics' Batman and The Signal along with New York Times best-selling author Scott Snyder.  He is a Sundance Institute New Frontier World Building ambassador and the founder of the Tenfold Gaming Initiative, which fosters community learning for disenfranchised youth in the New York area through video game programming, design, and play.


Duration: 1 hour and 30 minutes

THE SHEEN CENTER FOR THOUGHT AND CULTURE
18 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012

MOTION POETRY takes place in room: Vibrant Studio

Featured Film Screening | Tip of My Tongue
a film by lynne sachs

Image from the film Tip of My Tongue (2017) directed by. Lynne Sachs

Tip of My Tongue (80 min. 2017)
a film by Lynne Sachs

To celebrate her 50th birthday, filmmaker Lynne Sachs gathers together other people, men and women who have lived through precisely the same years but come from places like Iran or Cuba or Australia or the Lower East Side, not Memphis, Tennessee where Sachs grew up. She invites 12 fellow New Yorkers – born across several continents in the 1960s – to spend a weekend with her making a movie. Together they discuss some of the most salient, strange, and revealing moments of their lives in a brash, self-reflexive examination of the way in which uncontrollable events outside our own domestic universe impact who we are. As director and participant, Sachs, who wrote her own series of 50 poems for every year of her life, guides her collaborators across the landscape of their memories. They move from the Vietnam War protests to the Anita Hill hearings to the Columbine Shootings to Occupy Wall Street. Using the backdrop of the horizon as it meets the water in each of NYC’s five boroughs as well as abstracted archival material, TIP OF MY TONGUE becomes an activator in the resurrection of complex, sometimes paradoxical reflections. Traditional timelines are replaced by a multi-layered, cinematic architecture that both speaks to and visualizes the nature of historical expression.

Screening | Tip of My Tongue (80 minutes, 2017)
at The Maysles Documentary Center NY
Sunday July 21, 2019 | Doors open at 1045am. Film begins at 11am.

There is no cost for admission. Light refreshments served.

Maysles Documentary Center
343 Malcolm X Boulevard | New York, NY 10027

NOTE: Filmmaker Lynne Sachs will speak about her film Tip of My Tongue immediately after this screening. Please see event below.

TIP OF MY TONGUE | A Public Dialogue & Poetry Workshop with filmmaker Lynne Sachs
Sunday July 21, 2019 Talkback begins at 1230pm | Immediately following the screening of the film TIP OF MY TONGUE
(Please See Event Above)

Our cornerstone guest for the 2019 symposium is Lynne Sachs. Sachs’ work with documentary, poetry film and the essay film is consistently avant-guard. In this workshop, Sachs will be in open dialogue regarding her film “Tip of My Tongue” (80 min. 2017), which accentuates the poetry and essay film within its structure.  She will also read from her new book Year by Year Poems (Tender Buttons Press, 2019). Sachs will further guide the workshop discourse through an exploration into the hybridization of poetry film and essay film, and the meaning of these genres individually as well as combined.  After screening her film, Sachs will ask participants a question as a prompt for writing a poem: How has one moment in your life been affected by a public event beyond your control? 

Lynne Sachs, graduate of Brown University receiving a BA in history, inspired by the works of Bruce Conner, who would become her mentor, and Maya Deren. She is a recipient of the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in film and video, collaborated with Chris Marker on the 2007 remake of his 1972 film “Three Cheers for the Whale”, and co-edited the 2009 Millennium Film Journal issue #51 titled “Experiments in Documentary”.  Sachs’ work has established support with fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, as well as residencies at the Experimental Television Center and The MacDowell Colony. Sachs’ films have screened at the Museum of Modern Art, Pacific Film Archive, the Sundance Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, and Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema.

Maysles Documentary Center
343 Malcolm X Boulevard | New York, NY 10027
There is no cost for admission. Light refreshments served!

ART TALK | Mathematical Visual Poetry
Saturday August 3, 2019 Program begins at 1pm
There is no cost for admission.

Kazmier Maślanka will explain mathematical visual poetry and the tools used to create and understand the form visually. Mathematical poetry functions by placing concepts within mathematical equations enabling the math structure to function as a vehicle for metaphor, along with the visual poetics that conflate the aesthetics of cognitive science, mathematics, poetry, and visual art, to provide a unique experience. His practice brings us into the crossfire between the aesthetics of direct sensory experience and the aesthetics of analyzation and thinking. Kaz's work falls in a similar genre as Guillaume Apollinaire and Rene Magritte though his inclusion of the mathematical is an approach all to his own.

Kaz Maślanka, received a BFA in Sculpture from Wichita State University where he also studied music, mathematics and physics. He has pioneered mathematical visual poetry since the early 1980’s. Maślanka has garnered a strong international presence not only through his blog “Mathematical Poetry”, but also with exhibitions of his framed visual work and installations. He currently lives in San Diego California and works as an aerospace engineer and creates leading edge computer modeling techniques for aerospace manufacturing.  Kaz has served on the board of directors for the San Diego Sonic Arts Studio and on the advisory board of the Bronowski Art and Science Forum in Del Mar, California.

Duration: 1 hour and 30 minutes

THE LOS ANGELES CENTER FOR DIGITAL ART
104 E 4th Street
Los Angeles, California 90013

SYMPOSIUM PERSONA : TWO PERFORMANCES
NEW YORK | LOS ANGELES

SYMPOSIUM PERSONA: A NOVEL SONIC
The Film and Video Poetry Society presents Symposium Persona created and performed by visual artist and 2019 FVPS resident poet Dez'Mon Fair. Fair experiments with time based audio recordings of prose, poetry, riddles, and verse. Through interlacing this range of sound; hybridizing musical album, book on tape, soundscape and meditation, and audience participation; Fair proposes a new genre of storytelling: Novel Sonic.

SYMPOSIUM PERSONA: A NOVEL SONIC

Friday July 19, 2019 Doors @ 730pm. Program begins at 8:00pm.
ARTS ON SITE NYC
12 Saint Marks Place
Studio 3F
New York, New York 10003

Saturday August 3, 2019 Doors @ 730pm, Program begins at 8:00pm
LOS ANGELES CENTER FOR DIGITAL ART
104 East 4th Street
Los Angeles, California 90013

DOWNLOAD | 2019 FILM AND VIDEO POETRY SYMPOSIUM PRESS RELEASE

2nd Annual Symposium 2019 Full Program Line up

The 2019 Film and Video Poetry Symposium, presented by The Film and Video Poetry Society, has announced its official program for the second edition of The Film and Video Poetry Symposium. Starting July 12 and running through August 4, 2019 the Symposium will present international film screenings, 9 guest speakers, educational workshops, and gallery exhibit featuring the work of 18 artists and poets.

FVPS will present this year in three cities: New York, Moscow, and Los Angeles, California.

The Film and Video Poetry Symposium celebrates artistic excellence found through the union of poetry, film, video, and new media. The symposium brings together cinema enthusiasts, poets, filmmakers, video artists, and media artists to discover innovative work that stems from this dynamic field.

The 2019 program is a conglomerate of work described above and is curated through several sources. Please note: The Film and Video Poetry Symposium did not call for entries for this years program. A number of videopoems and poetry films have been selected through a review of past submissions. FVPS also invited poets, filmmakers, video artists, media curators, and cultural institutions to contribute work of high merit and historical importance. Finally, representing our first international exchange, FVPS has programmed 10 poetry films made by Russia directors.

The Second Annual Film and Video Poetry Society is proud to present the following films and videos for the 2019 Symposium:

·       HOUSE FOR AUTUMN EQUINOX (directors. Kristy Edmonds & Helen Lessick, U.S., 1992)
·       POEMS ABOUT THE BIG BALLET (d. Svetlana Chernikova, set to the poetry of Inna Zagraevskaya, Russia, 2017)
·       OPERATION CASTLE (d. Filip Gabriel Pudło, Poland, 2013)
·       WANT (director & poet. RG Cantalupo, U.S., 2014)
·       RASH, ACCORDION! (d. Ivan Oganesov, set to the poetry of Sergei Yesenin, Russia, 2019)
·       TONGUES UNTIED (director. Marlon Riggs, poets. Essex Hemphill & Brian Freeman, U.S., 1989)
·       I DON’T LIVE A VERY INTERESTING LIFE (writer & director. Susan Lin, U.S., 2014)
·       STARFISH AORTA COLOSSUS (directors. Lynne Sachs & Sean Hanley, p. Paulo Javier, U.S., 2015)
·       WHAT IS HAPPINESS? (d. Svetlana Koroleva, based on the poetry of Nikolai Aseev, Russia, 2018)
·       JOYCE (d. Mikhail Larionov, set to the poetry of Aleksey Pleshcheyev, Russia, 2017)
·       PERILOUS EXPERIMENT (media artist. Ruth Hayes, U.S., 2016)
·       HE LOVED (d. Anna Simakove, set to the poetry of Anna Akhmatova, Russia, 2018)
·       MOTHER (d. Graeme Maguire, p. Tim Atkins, U.K., 2015)
·       EXILES (d. Amirul Rajiv, set to the poetry of Areseny Tarkovsky, Banladesh, 2017)
·       BLUE SILVER (d. Jean Sanchez, Spain, 2019)
·       DREAMS OF LIVING IN A ZOO (d. Svetlana Chernikova, Animation. Francesco Sons, p. Konstantin Khabensky, Russia, 2018)
·       GOOD BYE EARTH, GOODBYE SKY (d. Lili White, U.S., 2006)
·       VIOLEN & A LITTLE NERVOUS (d. Ivan Oganesov, set to the poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky, Russia, 2016)
·       THE FAMILY HOME (d. Chad Attie, U.S., 2017)
·       THE EARTH (d. Aksinya Gog, set to the poetry of Boris Pasternak, Russia, 2016)
·       IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT? (media artist & poet. Anna Lieghton, U.S., 2019)
·       CHILDREN ARE THE ORGASM OF THE WORLD (animator. Frances Haszard, poet. Hera Lindway Bird, U.K., 2016)
·       I KEEP LOOKING FOR HIM (d. Andrew Beers, U.S., 2017)
·       TIP OF MY TONGUE (d. Lynne Sachs, U.S., 2017)
·       WHAT WAS IT? (d. Ilya Yepishchev set to the poetry of Danill Kharms, Russia, 2017)
·       THE LAST KNOWN PERSON (d. Pat Van Boeckel p. Ester Naomi Perquin, Netherlands, 2019)
·       AFTER GRACE I: MINERVA (d. Kailee McGee, p. Dez’Mon Omega Fair, U.S., 2019)
·       AFTER GRACE II: POLYHYMNIA (d. Sarah Harron, p. Dez’Mon Omega Fair, U.S., 2019)
·       AFTER GRACE III: CLIO (d. Nick Duran, p. Dez’Mon Omega Fair, U.S., 2019)
·       AFTER GRACE IV: ASTRAEA (d. Camille Cotteverte, p. Dez’Mon Omega Fair, U.S., 2019)
·       AFTER GRACE V: COLAPESCE (d. Jonathan Fasulo, p. Dez’Mon Omega Fair, U.S., 2019)
·       AFTER GRACE VI: PANDORA (d. Lior Shamiz, p. Dez’Mon Omega Fair, U.S., 2019)
·       THE 100 HEADED WOMAN (d. Éric Duvivier, set to the writings and imaginings of Max Earnst, France, 1967)
·       BITTER FRUIT (d. Avital Oehler, set to the poetry of Abel Meeropol, U.S., 2019)
·       I LOVED YOU (d. Victor Vokhmincev, set to the poetry of Alexander Pushkin, Russia, 2016)

Artists and Poets exhibiting at The Los Angeles Center For Digital Art

REGINA JOSE GALINDO . DANIEL LIEGHTON . BILL BARMINSKI . KAZMIER MASLANKA . JODY ZELLEN . LYNNE SACHS
LILI WHITE . PAULO JAVIER . MARLON RIGGS . ANNA LIEGHTON . SUSAN LIN . HELEN LESSICK
KRISTY EDMONDS . RG ROSS CANTALUPO . ERIC DUVIDIER . SARAH MORRIS . DEZ’MON OMEGA FAIR

The 2nd Annual Film and Video Poetry Symposium 2019 Guest Speakers

LYNNE SACHS
EXPERIMENTAL FILMMAKER & POET

ALEX COLE
MEDIA ARTIST

SHIRI PAAMONY ESHEL
DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER

BRIAN RATIGIN
ANIMATOR & EXPERIMENTAL FILMMAKER

ANATOLIY BELYY
ACTOR & POETRY FILMMAKER

DEZ’MON OMEGA FAIR
ARTIST & FVPS RESIDENT VIDEOPOET

TONY PATRICK
WORLDBUILDER & IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE CREATOR

LILI WHITE
EXPERIMENTAL FILMMAKER

KAZMIER MAŚLANKA
MATHMATICAL VISUAL POET

Venues, film blocks, speaking engagements, and all scheduling will be announced on this news feed, via email, and through social media on June 27, 2019.

2018 FVPS AWARDS

A Dialogue with Filmmaker Helen Anna Flanagan

Image from the film The Dynamists (2017) by Helen Anna Flanagan

Visual artist and filmmaker Helen Anna Flanagan engaged in dialogue with The Film and Video Poetry Society about the film “The Dynamists”. This short experimental film involves twelve disruptive teenagers and poet (the front man for the band Von Plastik) Herr Amadeus von Krank. Alluding to the coming of age movie genre, with its 'rites of passage', the video attempts to capture the transitional instability of adolescence and proposes disruption and conflict as an essential part to growth.

FVPS: Filmmakers who practice experimental film often have various ways of defining it. What are the parameters that may guide you through the creation of your work within this genre?

Helen Anna Flanagan: Experimental film for me is about resisting categorization and playing with conventions and expectations, reworking or skewing them. My films often start with an idea that transforms and builds itself by bridging gaps. As for parameters, I would rather my work be open to multiple readings and think that this somehow comes naturally with my personal way of working. There is always some internal logic to the scripts and film, but it is not always so clear or enforced. I think it is more beneficial when things are reinterpreted, or misunderstood.

FVPS: What role does poetry play within The Dynamists? For instance, poet and performing artist Herr Amadeus von Krank reads a simple recipe and then reads the words of his own poetry.

Helen Anna Flanagan: The fluctuation from one text to another was triggered by forms of disruption. The banal pancake recipe in English is juxtaposed with Herr’s poetry in Dutch and this creates a violent dance between language and comprehension. I am interested in how dialogue can go in many spontaneous directions, that communication has the possibility to go somewhere completely different when interrupted, or through it’s own breaking. Also, the text offers contrast not only because of the different languages spoken, but because of the nature of the text. The recipe can be considered instructional and the poetic lines as expressive. The idea of the fragment plays an important role for both here, and each of these texts relies on that as a sort of tempo… A broken tempo, I guess.

Image from the film The Dynamists (2017) featuring poet, musician, and performing artist Herr Amadeus von Krank.

FVPS: How do you conceptualize sound and silence within your films?

Helen Anna Flanagan: The sound or music in each film is related to the overall concept of the video i’m making at the time. The Dynamists has a cover of Shout by Tears for Fears, by Herr’s current Belgium band Von Plastik. As with Herr’s language that breaks, much like an adolescents voice when going through puberty, so does this specific track through the edit. The music accompanies the end part of the film showing an overview of the young teenagers in a sort of group tableau scene. Every time there is a physical slap of a person or the crash of a skateboard, the track suddenly stops and there is a violent and sudden cut to black. For me it was important for there to be the feeling something harsh and volatile was happening. The track itself is not only iconic and familiar, but the lyrics are also suggestive and relate back to the voice.

The Dynamists - Felix Weishut, Gust Stinckens, Liam Rossignuolo, Senne Martens, Dries Vandersmisseen, Aster Froyesn, Sasha Kerensky, Jonathan Veenhuysen, Lenny Gaethofs, Steven Brouns, Lisa Lahaije, En Mateo Reeskens.

FVPS: The description for The Dynamists says the film involves twelve disruptive teenage boys, though we think we see some girls in there. Have you taken an approach to gender as you characterized the ensemble within your film or does the cast symbolize a generalized attitude of adolescent spirit? 

Helen Anna Flanagan: An initial influence, and where the name The Dynamists came from, was inspired by The Futurists Art Movement - a collective who emphasized youth, speed, violence, technology, etc., and made works fixated on dynamic sensation. They were also known for being predominantly sexist and male-inclusive. The futurists embody an adolescent spirit, an energetic and unapologetic gang part of a temporary and short-lived moment in art history.

FVPS:  When watching the film we can't help but think that you are frequently exposing and revealing new elements and factors to everyone on set and that there is never a chance to reshoot or find a moment once it has passed.

Helen Anna Flanagan: There is no rehearsal prior, but instead there is a loose script that forms the basis and guide for filming. Leaving the camera running was an important technique to capture more improvised and authentic moments, such as mistakes or hesitations, restlessness, boredom, exhaustion, etc. This means that certain parts cannot be reshot and are based on chance. That is always an exciting part about shooting - you can never fully determine or predict behaviors.

FVPS: Would you please muse for us on the relationship between poetry and cinema?

Helen Anna Flanagan: Poetry has the potential to create different positions and perspectives that relate to the medium of film. Film and the language of editing are based on sequencing, editing and timing; fragments put together to create a whole to try articulate or suggest something outside of itself.

I came across this quote that I’ve kept onto by 19th century poet Arthur Henry Hallam: “Rhyme contains a constant appeal to memory and hope; it sets up an expectation, and reassures us when it arrives.” I think the same could be said for music, dance, film, etc. I think such rhythm or expectation can be played with to create different experiences or expectations, to disorientate and surprise. It’s interesting after that to then try to lull or seduce the viewer back into the safe reassurance of the familiar.

FVPS: Do you practice within any other mediums asides from film?

Helen Anna Flanagan: Most recently I’ve been experimenting with installation, or ways to present film or video in a space outside of the standard screening format by bringing in new materials. I am interested in having elements of a film come into a space in one way or another and to alter a viewer’s passive relationship to the thing that they watch. I am fascinated with the different ways you can access or watch moving images and how that changes your experience and relationship to it, the people you watch it with, or the space you are in.

Image from Helen Anna Flanagan's film The Dynamists (2017)

FVPS: What would you like the viewers of your experimental films to learn or experience as they view your work?

Helen Anna Flanagan: I don’t want to offer any clear or precise meaning. I hope that people can take something subjective from it, that they can engage and make their own associations, or be perplexed, entertained, confused, and/ or angry. I’m not exclusive to any specific feeling or emotion, but rather happy when people watch it or engage with it and construct their own meaning from it.

FVPS: Would you share with us what you may be working on currently?

Helen Anna Flanagan: I’m in the last parts of editing a new film called Swamps & Ponds I’ve made during a three-month artist residency in Graz, Austria. It is loosely based on the speculative origins of the 19th century Styrian arsenic eaters, a collective of peasants known as the Toxicophagi who were written about by the physician and naturalist Johann Jakob von Tschudi in 1851. The Toxicophagi used arsenic regularly and were thought to have become immune to the poison due to regular doses. They ate the arsenic either to acquire a fresh complexion or to facilitate respiration when walking or working in the mountains. This poison is used as a symbolic starting point to explore the power of invisible substances or structures and the tolerance of an overlooked collective. By repurposing this compound, the aim is to explore the implications substances and ‘invisible’ toxic forces have on group formation and dissolution; hierarchies and power; and subcultures and intoxication.

[END OF DIALOGUE]

Helen Anna Flanagan is a filmmaker and visual artist who lives and practices between Rotterdam, NL, & Birmingham, UK. She graduated with a MA from AKV St Joost, Netherlands and her BA from Falmouth College of Arts, UK.  Recent activities include a residency at Metal, Southend, UK and a solo exhibition at bb15, Linz, Austria.  Her work screens internationally and can be referenced by visiting her website: www.helenannaflanagan.com

Helen Anna Flanagan's film The Dynamists (2017) is screening at 1:00pm on Saturday, April 28, 2018 during The Film and Video Poetry Symposium’s PURE MERCURY film block at The Revive Theater on 12420 Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles, California 90025.

Click here for the full program.

A .PDF file of this article is available here or within the FVPS digital archive.

FVPS Visits the University Library of Leaven, Belgium

April 14, 2018 - University Library of Leaven, Belgium. Photo Credit: Michiel Verbeek

The 2018 Film and Video Poetry Symposium is proud to be included within The Creative Process, an exhibition currently on display within the University Library of Leuven in Belgium.  This exhibition is presented in collaboration with The European Conference for the Humanities. This show consists of work from organizations, writers, artists, from over 50 countries each contributing creative insights, stories, poems, artworks, films, essays, manifestos, dance works, and installation. Curator, artist, and academic Mia Funk of The Creative Process contextualized over 150 still images drawn from The 2018 Film and Video Poetry Symposium's official film line up.  The film stills from the Symposium's 2018 selection rooster are made up of over 80 experimental, essay, and poetry films and each are present within the exhibition. 

The Film and Video Poetry Symposium continues to be in collaboration with the international educational initiative The Creative Process. Through their participating writers, educators, film schools, and conferences, The Film and Video Poetry Symposium will advance the opportunity to develop, distribute, and celebrate poetry films by emerging talent and notable authors. The Creative Process Exhibition presented at the University Library of Leuven in Belgium closes on June 30, 2018 in order to prepare for installation within it's second venue University of Salamanca in Spain.

Currently, The Creative Process Exhibition features only still images from the 80 or so poetry films selected for the 2018 Film and Video Poetry Symposium.  Each image is presented as a projected element which includes the credits of the authors of the work, poet, filmmaker, or visual artists. Artifacts, art work, and historical documents pertaining to education, research and cultural exchange juxtapose the images projected within this creative environment.  Becuase the exhibition is within the University Library of Leuven in Belgium, certain restriction apply regarding sound. Though as the exhibition continues to tour it's venues will including gallery spaces and dedicated art areas that will allow full screenings from the Film and Video Poetry Society's archives.

The European Conference for the Humanities is hosted by the Faculty of Arts of KU Leuven and KU Leuven Libraries. This years theme is “Equip & Engage: Research and Dissemination Infrastructures for the Humanities”. Papers and discussions focus around (challenges connected to) digital scholarship and the dissemination and impact of the results of this research. The conference program features keynote lectures, conference papers, project presentations/ demos and a panel discussion, as well as the annual meeting of ECHIC and diverse networking opportunities. Keynote speakers are Jane Ohlmeyer, who is Erasmus Smith’s Professor of Modern History and Director of Trinity Long Room Hub at Trinity College Dublin, and Martin Paul Eve, who is Professor of Literature, Technology and Publishing at Birkbeck, University of London.  The Film and Video Poetry Society representatives attended the conference from April 4 through April 6, 2018.

The Creative Process exhibition will be presented within the University Library of Leaven in Belgium through June 30th, 2018

The 2018 Film and Video Poetry Symposium begins on April 26 through April 29, 2018 in Los Angeles, Ca. For more information please click here.