This merging of poetry and cinema presents a map of desire and loss, memory landscapes, the physical embedding of words, a lingering sense of the unattainable, and “things that used to be true.”
expect something and nothing at once / Dir. Michelle Elrick, 2013, Canada, 3.5 min / Poet Elrick approaches home through blanket forts, poetry and collected sounds in this stark and beautiful film from the Canadian prairie.
IKWÉ / Dir. Caroline Monnet, 2009, Canada, 4.5 min / An experimental film that weaves the narrative of one woman’s intimate thoughts with the teachings of her grandmother, the Moon.
Someone Who is Not Like Anyone / Dir. Aeyliya Husain, 2015, Canada, 6 min / Super-8 footage of Iran from 15 years ago is combined with the poem by Farough Farookhzad, a 20th century Iranian feminist poet, offering a young girl’s statement of hope.
Time Away / Dir. Aubriand (Carole O’Brien), 2006, Canada, 7 min /Three guides accompany us on a road trip away from time… and towards the transformative end of the road, space.
REPÈRES / Dir. Karoline Georges, 2011-2015, Canada, 8.5 min / 22 tableaux from Vancouver and Toronto each present a poetic suggestion, in French, integrated into the urban environment.
Primiti Too Taa / Dirs. Ed Ackerman and Colin Morton, 1986, Canada, 3 min / A delightful animated poem made with only a typewriter and simple vocal messages, based on the 1920s sound poem Ursonate (Sonata in Primitive Sounds) by the German avant-garde artist Kurt Schwitters.
Tonight Is for the Trees / Dir. Matthew Hayes, 2014, Canada, 3 min / A short film based on the spoken-word of poet Sasha Patterson.
Sandpiper / Dir. John Scott, 2014, Canada, 3.5 min / Based on the poem written by Elizabeth Bishop in 1965, this film playfully evokes the sandpiper’s worldview and the spirit of the poem’s searching motif.
Dog Sitting in Eastern Passage / Dir. Martha Cooley, 2013, Canada, 2.5 min / Through a series of hand-written poems scattered across the landscape of Eastern Passage Nova Scotia, a story emerges of heartbreak and hope.
Collapsed / Dir. Kaoru Ryan Klatt, 2014, Canada, 12 min / Set in an endless landscape of wheat fields, a mother who has lost her son for reasons beyond her control pushes down the walls of her home for a better view and a runway to fly up into the clear blue.
The Envoi Poetry Festival (EPF), May 29 – June 5, 2015 at the Forks, celebrates Canadian poetry; bringing Indigenous, Francophone, and western Canadian poets and spoken word artists to national attention. envoifound.com/about
