from interfilm

Four days of filmed poetry: for the fifth time the Literaturwerkstatt Berlin is presenting new international poetry films at the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival from 14 to 17 October 2010. In the Babylon cinema in Berlin-Mitte, 170 short films will be shown that are based on poems. In the Competition, 26 of them will compete for the prize for the best poetry film. The extensive programme of themes will be supplemented by readings by poets, workshop discussions and the ZEBRINO programme for children. A historic programme and a film workshop will round the festival off.

More than 900 short films have been sent in from 71 countries. The programme committee has selected 26 of them for the competition. The winners are being selected by an international jury. The prizes being awarded this year are the ZEBRA Prize for the Best Poetry Film, the Goethe Institute Film Poetry Prize and the Ritter Sport Prize, donated by Alfred Ritter GmbH&Co KG, with a total value of 10,000 EUR.

A new feature this year is a German-Israeli workshop, facilitated by the German-Israeli Future Forum Foundation. Three pairs of artists comprising Israeli filmmakers Emanuella Amichai, Avi Dabach and Joshua Simon and German poets Daniel Falb, Monika Rinck and Jan Wagner will be working together to produce scripts and create poetry films in six days that will be shown in the festival.

The festival offers various focus topics: programmes on borderline experiences, love or horror as well as a focus on Israel and Italy and, to mark 200 years of independence, on Argentina.

For children aged 8-12 insights will be offered in the ZEBRINO children’s film programme into the creation of poetry, film and festival with filmmakers and poets on hand.

Also, in the historic programme, one of the very first poetry films will be shown, The Unchanging Sea by D. W. Griffith. And there will be the German premiere of a largely unknown early work by Michael Curtiz, Mein Bruder kommt (My Brother is Coming) , loosely based on the poem of the same name by Antal Farkas. Curtiz became world famous as the director of Casablanca .

The ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival has established itself as the largest international forum for short films, offering film-makers from all over the world the opportunity to exchange ideas and consolidate a basis for future work. It offers a platform for short films that deal with poems either aesthetically or in terms of their content or their form.

For more info please visit: http://www.literaturwerkstatt.org