Assaltaram a Gramática(1984)

Khamsin(fr)

Lebanon today. The traces of the civil war are all too tangible as government corruption becomes unbearable. In a country where conflict and peace are caught in an endless cycle, musicians from different backgrounds pool their talents to create an underground music scene. Each evokes his or her representation of Lebanon: its shifting geographical, political, historical and social borders, its painful passage through conflict and instability. A touching portrait of a young generation trying to build an oasis in a hostile environment where the forces of destruction continue to wreak havoc.

Batouk(fr)

This uneven and uninspired documentary of Africa is a collection from various stock footage. Female dancers in mod clothes dance on the Eiffel Tower in comparison to the primitive dances of native Africans. A lone runner trains for a marathon, and a few animals are shown in their natural habitat. Commentary and modern jazz and pop music help to make this seem much longer than 66 minutes.

She(en)

She is a full-length documentary about writer Aimée Baker and her award-winning poetry collection Doe. Doe is her quest to give voice to the missing and unidentified women of the United States.

Though You May Not Know(es)

An account of the life and work of the Spanish poet Luis García Montero; a journey through his experiences, his mentors, his influences and his contact with other artists, both from the literary world and from other disciplines.

Little Mad Robinson(sk)

The film is an unusual portrait of Slovak poet Jozef Urban who tragically died. Nevertheless, his short life was enough for his work to influence social and cultural spheres in Slovakia. First of all, however, he was a bohemian and a rebel able to see beyond his generation’s field of vision. He lived a life of an impalpable hothead floundering in loves, desires and passions. At the same time, as an author, his reasoning and views were precious and clear.

Bert Schierbeek/The Door(nl)

A short portrait of poet Bert Schierbeek, who reads from his poetry.

Voices & Visions: T.S. Eliot(en)

T. S. Eliot has been considered by many to be the leading American poet of this century. His contemporaries in the 1920s recognized in “The Waste Land” an expression of the exhaustion and fragmentation that afflicted so many in that post-war era. They also recognized the originality of Eliot’s poetic technique and admired his insistence on the need for spiritual values in an age of popular kitsch.

Milan Rúfus(sk)

Spellbound(en)

Wingsuit BASE jumping is often presented as a thrill seeking adrenaline rush. Spellbound takes us deeper into the more contemplative aspects of jumping, as David Walden and friends venture into the mountains around his home in New Zealand. Beautiful scenery and hypnotic cinematography eject us from our daily lives into a world of air, earth and flight.

sucking on words(en)

sucking on words is a documentary film that features interviews with, and extensive performances by, the American poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It also features critical commentary on his intense and ground-breaking conceptualist practice from three of North America’s leading voices on avant-garde poetics. Shot on location in New York in 2007, the lively conversations featured in sucking on words are an ideal introduction to Goldsmith’s witty and provocative works, which are already regarded as hallmarks of 21st-century literature. The film showcases readings from some of his notorious books: No.111 (found phrases ending in the ‘r’ rhyme and filtered alphabetically by syllable count); Soliloquy (a transcription of every word Goldsmith spoke for a week); Day (a retyping of one day’s New York Times newspaper); Traffic (one day’s worth of hourly radio traffic bulletins); and The Weather (one year’s worth of radio weather bulletins).

Catalan Poets(ca)

At underground film of the 1st Popular Festival of Catalan Poetry filmed in the Proce Theater in Barcelona on May 25, 1970, in solidarity with political prisoners. The participating poets were: Agustí Bartra, Joan Oliver (Pere IV), Salvador Espriu, Joan Brossa, Francesc Vallverdú and Gabriel Ferrater.

Lejano Interior(es)

A "cinematic object" by Mariano Llinás, divided into 9 chapters, based on the poetry of Henri Michaux.

My Love Awaits Me By the Sea(ar)

Hasan Hourani, a Palestinian poet and illustrator, died aged 29 in Jaffa while trying to rescue his nephew from the sea. Shortly after, the filmmaker Mais Darwazah discovers his drawings and poems and feels drawn to Hourani's world— a universe outside space and time; a place of wonder, discovery, and freedom. Motivated by this kinship, Darwazah embarks on a journey to her homeland, Palestine: a place she has never known.

Wordsworth Country(en)

A look at the Lake District and its famous poet.

Inger Christensen - The cicadas exist(da)

In this portrait film, we meet Inger Christensen in her apartment in Østerbro, Copenhagen, where she tells of her life and work, and reads excerpts from her major works.

INFINITY minus Infinity(en)

INFINITY minus Infinity draws on several inspirations: the modernist verse of the Jamaican poet Una Marson, the alluvial invocations of the Martinican philosopher and poet Édouard Glissant, the black feminist poetics of the Brazilian philosopher Denise Ferreira da Silva, and the racial formation of geology theorised by British geographer Kathryn Yusoff amongst others in order to envision a black feminist cosmos animated by the principles of mathematical nihilism.

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) - Muse of Keening(en)

A short film by Barry Lowe and Dino Mahoney, starring Pauline Burton as Anna. The film is an introduction to the great Soviet era modernist poet, Anna Akhmatova; shot in winter in Saint Petersburg (Leningrad), it contains rare interviews with people who knew her, academics, and dramatized readings of some of her poems.

Chris, sous le pont Laënnec(fr)

Bambi Hunter(en)

Lockdown, lack of green space, Don Quixote and video games.

The Centuries Surround Me with Fire(en)

A documentary, originally produced for Dutch television, on the life and works of Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938), the groundbreaking Soviet poet and dissident.