Venice, CA, April 6, 2022 - Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center has announced its collaboration with the Los Angeles-based International Poetry Film Festival, Hollywood, to present the festival’s inaugural screening on April 30, 2022. The festival, which features over 40 poetry films from 12 countries, will be presented in Beyond Baroque’s newly-renovated theater in Venice, California. The full line-up of films and programs, as well as ticketing information, will be released in the coming days.

“Celebrating the marriage of filmmakers with poets and their poetry will bring new audiences into engagement with both poetry and film. We are thrilled to screen this unique film festival, especially during April, which is National Poetry Month” says Beyond Baroque’s Executive Director, Quentin Ring. Beyond Baroque sees the International Poetry Film Festival as a step forward in advancing its mission, which, since 1968, has been to present programs that explore the artistic possibilities of language.

Founding director of the festival, Lynn M. Holley, of Hollywood, expressed her enthusiasm that Beyond Baroque, L.A.’s oldest literary institution, will host her new film festival. “I began this festival before I had a place to screen it, one of those ‘if you build it and they will come’ moments,” she said. “I want it to continue in perpetuity at this iconic Los Angeles literary space.” Holley credited L.A. Poet Laureate Lynne Thompson for pointing her toward Beyond Baroque, and said that Thompson will kick off April’s festival by reading one of her poems.

According to Holley, who produces two other film festivals currently in their 6th and 10th seasons, her idea to develop the International Poetry Film Festival, Hollywood came when she noticed that poem-based films were entering her other festivals at an increasing rate. It became a challenge for her and judges to select official entries, or to choose winners, when put up against non-poem based films. As a result, Holley says, “judging became askew… As poem-based filmmakers were exploring the use of poems as the spine of their stories, not just a script, but as the visual expression of the movement of words. Some good films were being overlooked.” Holley studied poetry at Cornell University, and due to that academic foundation, as well as her long love of poetry, she wanted to create a festival that “can help make a change in the film industry to really celebrate poem-based films.”

Poetry is currently enjoying a surge of interest in the United States. The country’s youngest Presidential Inaugural Poet, Amanda Gorman, herself an alumna of Beyond Baroque’s workshops, has become a worldwide celebrity. Meanwhile, filmmakers have become increasingly interested in interpreting poetry in visual terms. Hollywood has produced numerous films about poetry and poets in recent years, including Paterson, directed by Jim Jarmusch and starring Adam Driver, and Wild Nights with Emily, directed by Madeleine Olnek and starring Molly Shannon. International filmmakers have also increasingly focused on poems and poetry, with Emma Thompson receiving an Emmy Award nomination for her role in Song of Lunch, which was based on a Christopher Reid poem by the same name, and was directed by Niall Macormick.

Beyond Baroque has long been a focal point for the intersection of poetry with film and the other arts. It has not only helped nurture a wide array of poets, but has provided creative support to musicians, such as the band X; actors and filmmakers, such as Viggo Mortensen; and a wide array of visual artists. “We’re committed to exploring the ways in which poetry can cross-fertilize with visual media, including film,” Ring says. “For that reason, I couldn’t be more excited to host this festival.”

CONTACT:

Lynn M. Holley, 805-450-3799
Quentin Ring, 310-822-3006
quentin@beyondbaroque.org
www.PoetryFilmFestival.org