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Next Events:

Haus für Poesie recommends 
ECHOO Konferenzdolmetschen 

International Competition II

SAT 14.10.23 | 7.30 pm | Kino in der Kulturbrauerei

SUN 15.10.23 | 5 pm | Kino in der Kulturbrauerei

The best poetry films from around the world – and the world in a microcosm of poetry film. Poets and filmmakers question social norms and postcolonial structures, breaking taboos. Where great poetry performance encounters a moving story. About 1,200 entries from over 90 countries were submitted to 2023’s ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival. A program committee nominated 25 of them for the international competition. 

The three-member international jury will award the following prizes this year: the “ZEBRA Prize for the Best Poetry Film,” donated by the House of Poetry, the “Goethe Film Prize – Borders,” donated by the Goethe-Institut, and the “Ritter Sport Film Prize,” donated by Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co KG. 

Hosted by Gian-Philip Andreas

The screenings are normally shown in the original with English subtitles. 

Unless stated otherwise, the event languages are German and English. 

Please be aware that several films in some film programs include potentially challenging or disturbing content, which may trigger survivors of trauma.

Link to the event

TICKETS

R·D: Regie · Director | G·P: Gedicht · Poem | D·P: Dichter · Poet

FILMS

Shapes of Aether

  Shapes of Aether

AUT 2023 | 2 min

R·D: Elias Choi-Buttinger
G·P: Shapes of Aether
D·P: Weng Teng Choi-Buttinger            

The elements: raw. A vast landscape in front of man. Within it: a body in motion. Slow dance in an ice boat. Black dress, black sand. Widescreen poetry film with music, voice and movement. Still: a discourse on the conditions of thought, perception and their limits. A cosmological journey. A volcano by the sea.

Fitzgerald & Rimini – D Frou Bovary de Porrentruy <br> Fitzgerald & Rimini - Mrs. Bovary from Porrentruy

  Fitzgerald & Rimini – D Frou Bovary de Porrentruy
Fitzgerald & Rimini - Mrs. Bovary from Porrentruy

CHE 2022 | 9 min

R·D: Yannick Mosimann
G·P: D Frou Bovary de Porrentruy
D·P: Ariane von Graffenried           

The flickering of analog images. Interiors and facades, fallen out of time. A poem by Ariane von Graffenried, virtuously alternating between three languages. Madame Bovary, transposed to a Swiss provincial village. Lunchtime affairs, aimless online shopping. But there's always a gap between desire and being. The ennui of the unfulfilled, laced with post-rock.

Testigo del Viento <br> Wind whisperer

  Testigo del Viento
Wind whisperer

DEU 2022 | 7 min

R·D: Fernanda Caicedo
G·P: Testigo del Viento
D·P: Fernanda Caicedo 

A cicada's song is born out of the darkness. Dreamy stop-motion animation – an attempt to contend with death and disappearance. That nothing remains the same. Dancing fabric flowers, hidden under the veil of night. They entwine, accompany and inhabit the dead. How beauty emerges from grief and loss.

L’ Ombre des papillons <br> Shadow of the Butterflies

  L’ Ombre des papillons
Shadow of the Butterflies

MAR 2022 | 9 min

R·D: Sofia El Khyari
G·P: L’Ombre des papillons
D·P: Sofia El Khyari 

Lullaby for a drawn woman. Butterflies transform into trees, into faces. Delicately animated colors, as though they were inked. Following the butterfly into the dark, running. Listening to a sung poem by Sofia El Khyari: "Oh happiness, reveal yourself soon." Hands caressing tree trunks, searching for lost peace. A tongue in the ear, a butterfly in the mouth.


The Torrid Zone

  The Torrid Zone

FRA 2023 | 3 min

R·D: Carine Iriarte
G·P: The torrid zone
D·P: Tania Haberland 

Stylishly alienated images from the ocean. Surf, jellyfish, plants. Erotic evocations of water, flesh, movement. The transitions between living beings are fluid: "We are varied animal life. / (...) / We are wet / we are slippery.” Interwoven images, words and music. An ecopoetic meditation.

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief.

  No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief.

USA 2022 | 4 min

R·D: Matthew Thompson
G·P: No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief.
D·P: Gerard Manley Hopkins 

A rehearsal stage in front of a black curtain. A sonnet by Gerard Manley Hopkins, recited both angrily and subtly by the actor David Bankole. In semi-darkness, reduced to voice, hands, face. A poem on the pain of death: "all / Life does end and each day dies with sleep". Desolation, formally exaggerated.

Just Once

  Just Once

ARE 2023 | 2 min

R·D: Zuhair Lokhandwala
G·P: Just Once
D·P: Maryam Imogen Ghouth 

Devastated by love, "battered, / muddy, nose buried in the earth". Maryam Imogen Ghouth's poem meditates on a Rumi phrase about risking everything for love. Questions about the value of worthlessness are paired with powerful, intimate images of Kushti wrestlers in Dubai. In their faces, the sand, jubilation and resignation.

Eve

  Eve

USA 2022 | 2 min

R·D: Meghann Plunkett
G·P: Eve
D·P: Meghann Plunkett

Poignant poem by Meghann Plunkett about Eve, "the first dissatisfied woman," feeling the scar in Adam's side – and despising it. Accompanied by a seemingly simple animation by Miranda Javid with eyes, bodies, waves, brushes and a zigzagging myth that always needs to be refuted. The cool elegance of feminism.

Фокстроти <br> Fokstroty International: Troianker. Tiger Lilies

  Фокстроти
Fokstroty International: Troianker. Tiger Lilies

UKR 2023 | 5 min

R·D: Oksana Shchur
G·P: Koly potiag u dal' zahurkoche...
D·P: Raisa Troianker, Zgadka Volodymyr Sosiura 

Ballad about a circus tamer's love for an untamable tigress. Half nostalgic, half ironic music video after the Ukrainian poets Raisa Troianker and Volodymyr Sosyura. A Ukrainian-German collaboration between Yuriy Gurzhy, Sascha Conrad and Ulrike Almut Sandig. A historical poem, transposed and updated.

The Voice in Isabel Fleiss's Office

  The Voice in Isabel Fleiss's Office

USA 2022 | 6 min

R·D: Jim Haverkamp
G·P: The Voice in Wilhelm Fleiss's Office
D·P: Virgil Renfroe                   

Cobwebs in your throat? Not a problem for Dr. Fleiss. The patient simply has a zipper sewn into her throat. A black-and-white retro-style film based on a poem by Virgil Renfroe, filled with surreal normality and fever-dream logic. Poetic body horror about the consequences of smoking, absent love and generalized loneliness.

Satane Sefid <br> White Sateen

  Satane Sefid
White Sateen

IRN 2022 | 2 min

R·D: Shiva Sadegh Asadi
G·P: Satane Sefid
D·P: Shiva Sadegh Asadi                                              

A doll and a head, home alone. Then a black rhinoceros stops by. Object animation by Shiva Sadegh Asadi with toys from her childhood – but anything but cute. A film about the fear of growing up, about blood and domestic violence. Powerful images with children's voices on the soundtrack. A powerful film.

Une amitié <br> A Friendship

  Une amitié
A Friendship

FRA 2023 | 3 min

R·D: Arthur Catteau
G·P: Une amitié
D·P: Charles Vildrac                                              

A boat rests on stilts in the mountains. A dried-up riverbed. It hasn't been sailed in a long time. But a woman has the key to the cabin. As soon as she touches the wheel, the boat sets sail. Animation to a poem by Charles Vildrac about the power of friendship, in which peculiarities and shortcomings complement each other, united by consideration and respect.

Ants in Tokyo

  Ants in Tokyo

POL 2022 | 2 min

R·D: Peter Michael Tolkacz
G·P: Ants in Tokyo
D·P: Sawako Nakayasu                                   

Polish animation based on an English-Japanese poem, playful and minimalist. How ants communicate with each other in noisy Tokyo, even though they have no ears. A witty, clever digression about languages, signs and utopias of togetherness: "that is how they find each other again so that no one has to feel lost for very long at all, no not at all."