Zata Banks is the founder and director of PoetryFilm, the influential research art project launched in 2002. PoetryFilm celebrates experimental text/image/sound screening and performance material, and explores semiotics and meaning-making within the art form. PoetryFilm was founded through Zata’s personal practice, and through an interest in the creation, perception and experience of emotion and meaning.

Since 2002, PoetryFilm has produced over 80 highly influential events at cinemas, galleries, literary festivals and academic institutions – including Tate Britain, The ICA, Southbank Centre, Cannes Film Festival, CCCB Barcelona, O Miami, and Curzon Cinemas (see Past Events page for more). Talks about PoetryFilm include sessions for MA Creative Writing at Warwick University, MA Filmmaking at The National Film & Television School, and MA Visual Communication at The Royal College of Art. Zata has also judged poetry film prizes for the Southbank Centre, Zebra Festival in Berlin, Apples & Snakes poetry organisation in the UK, CYCLOP Festival in Kiev, and CCR (Carbon Culture Review) in the USA.

PoetryFilm is supported by Arts Council England, who recently funded the cataloguing of the entire PoetryFilm Archive, which at present contains over 1,000 international artworks. In March 2015, Zata Banks contributed an academic presentation about this archive to an AHRC-funded conference at Leeds University. PoetryFilm is an accredited member of Film Hub London, part of the BFI Audience Network, and holds a trademark awarded by the Intellectual Property Office.

Curated programmes: Curated PoetryFilm screening programmes are available to book and can be tailored to specific themes.

Talks/presentations: Talks about the PoetryFilm project, and about the poetry film artform, can be prepared for festivals, conferences and academic institutions. 

Judging: Zata Banks is available to judge competition material.

“Recent signs of poetic cine-literacy include Zata [Banks’] PoetryFilm nights” – Oxford Handbook of Contemporary British and Irish Poetry, Oxford University Press, 2014

“The cult PoetryFilm night is the only UK platform for the creative but very much un-mined field of poetry film. The PoetryFilm movement led by Zata [Banks] is forging new cinematic expressions: an innovative cinema of poetry, and a language of poetry film.” – Genesis Cinema, July 2005

“A great event – one of the most interesting and invigorating I have been to this year!” – Arts Council England, 2014

“Founded by artist Zata [Banks] over a decade ago, the PoetryFilm art project continues to play with the avant-garde” – AQNB magazine, 2014

“Zata [Banks’] regular London screenings have become something of a cult attraction to independent film-buffs and poetry-fans alike.” – Battersea Arts Centre, May 2005

“What a wonderful event! The films are stunning – I could watch them all again. Thanks so much for bringing this to us.” – Festival Director, Swindon Poetry Festival 2014

“PoetryFilm is opening up the barriers between the arts” – Inscribe Writers, February 2014