PoetryFilm Equinox

*Circles, Cycles, Sequences, Planets, Patterns*

A special PoetryFilm event celebrating the Equinox with a bespoke programme of experimental short films, poetry readings and music performances exploring circles, cycles, sequences, planets and patterns.

Time: 7.30pm

Venue: Charlotte Street Hotel Cinema (located downstairs)

Address: 15-17 Charlotte Street, London WIT 1RJ. Nearest tubes: Tott Court Road or Goodge Street (Northern Line).

For further information, please contact Malgorzata at info@poetryfilm.org

*PROGRAMME*

FLOATERS IN THE EYE (Antoinette Zwirchmayr, 3m)

The text of Paul Celan’s poem Schliere (Floaters) is printed with a Braille writing machine onto black leader, thus translating it into Braille writing. The 16mm film is actually readable to a blind person through physical touch, though projected onto the screen the writing transforms into an unidentifiable code of bright spots. These sequences are cut with sewing scenes, the sewing referencing the restrictions of (visual) language to a blind person, and perhaps also the limits of language itself.

THERE IS NO ORIGINAL (dir: Stephen Snell, Steven Chamberlain; words: Steve Coxon; sound: Ohmm, 3m51)

The film was created entirely on sticky tape.

The sticky tape is played through a specially adapted projector which creates unusual visuals. The experimental medium pioneered here lends itself to processes usually associated with montage, direct to film techniques and media specific techniques, notably “flayed paper”.

ONE MOMENT PASSES (words: Robert Lax; computer animation: Susanne Wiegner, 3m)

One Moment Passes is a meditative game of patterns with “is” and “was”; past and present. Three different time layers – the past, present and future – are put on top of each other to create the very moment of presence. The film starts and ends with a step-by-step perception: reading, hearing, seeing.

INSOMNIA (dir: Daniel Dugas, 3m)

Dictionaries hold all the words of languages and images hold all the feelings in the world (discuss). A television show about the Big Bang theory adds to the anguish of not being able to sleep. What would happen to dreaming if time itself disappeared?

Words:

SIMON BARRACLOUGH

Simon Barraclough is the author of Los Alamos Mon Amour (Salt, 2008), Bonjour Tetris (Penned in the Margins, 2010) and Neptune Blue (Salt, 2011). He is the editor of Psycho Poetica (Sidekick Books, 2012) and co-deviser and co-author of The Debris Field (Sidekick Books, 2013).

This evening he will read “the planet suite” from Neptune Blue.

QUANTUM LOVE (dir: Laura Focarazzo; sound art: David Horner, 6m)

Inspired by quantum physics, the film explores the idea of uncertainty.

DRIFT (Mark Khalife, 5m07)

A couple lives on the other side of the world to each other and cannot be awake at the same time. The film explores dualities of time and through a circadian cycle spanning two time zones.

METAMORPHOSE DU PAPILLON (Dir: Pere Ginard and Laura Gines, 5m)

A revision / reinterpretation / rewriting of Gaston Ville’s eponymous film (1906) exploring the cycle of life through metamorphosis.

Words:

Tim Cumming

Tim Cumming was born in Solihull and was brought up in the West Country. His poetry collections include The Miniature Estate (1991), Apocalypso (1992, 1999), Contact Print (2002) and The Rumour (2004). His work has appeared in anthologies including The Forward Poems of the Decade, and Identity Parade (Bloodaxe). He made the acclaimed Hawkwind: Do Not Panic documentary for the BBC in 2007 and writes regularly for The Independent and The Guardian on music and the arts. His film poem Radio Carbon was premiered at PoetryFilm at the Renoir cinema in 2009.

This evening Tim Cumming will read new poems including Plate Tectonica, which features the mathematical algorithm as a metaphor.

THE SHELL OF THE WORLD (dir. and words: Robert Peake; music: Valerie Kampmeier, 10m39)

A sequence of 7 parts exploring patterns of belonging and alienation. Shot on iPhone and edited on a laptop.

KISSING IN HATS (dir: Stuart Pound; words: Rosemary Norman, 1m30)

The poem is a villanelle, a verse form where the regular repetition of two key lines gives added urgency to what is being said. The effect is intensified by multiple looping of the speaker’s voice as a moving path scans across four line drawings.

ANFORTAS (dir: Carolyn Radio an Alanna Simone; words: Carolyn Radio, 5m24)

The work was originally produced as a 3-channel, 3-wall installation and is being shown tonight as a single film. Anfortas is a stop-motion animation of everyday objects used to convey larger metaphysical ideas. Woven choreographies of red and white items are overlaid with a story intertwining creation myths with a knight’s quest for the transformative vessel.

MY FILM ENTRY (dir: Neil Ira Needleman, 1m50)

The director writes: “It would be too easy to write something here about “life imitating art” or “art imitating life”. But it’s much simpler than that. Here’s how I see it: the world has become a complicated place. Too complicated for me. I now seek solace, salvation and inner peace by performing tasks that are simple and pure. In a complicated and ambiguous world, it doesn’t get any simpler than this. I hope you enjoy it, because as soon as this video is over, the complications begin. Simply yours, Neil.”

Words and Sounds:

NIALL MCDEVITT (15m)

Niall McDevitt is a poet, author of b/w (Waterloo Press, 2010), literary tour guide (poetopography.wordpress.com) and poetry editor of International Times (www.internationaltimes.it).

This evening he will perform with a bodhran drum which is circular and beautifully patterned. His poems will celebrate the millennium, the drum, and the zero.