2024 International Poetry Film Festival, Los Angeles
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3rd Annual International Poetry Film Festival, Los Angeles  Beyond Baroque presents the third season of the International Poetry Film Festival, Los Angeles. This year’s Opening Night features a special screening of Life is a Saxophone, a documentary that captures legendary poet Kamau Daáood as he considers survival as an oral poet in an electronic age. Filmed in 1984 and originally shot in 16 mm, the documentary includes a live concert at Watts Towers Arts Center in Los Angeles, with interpretations of his work by musicians Billy Higgins, Roberto Miguel Miranda, Dadisi Komolafe, and Nirankhar Singh Khalsa; dancer Lula Washington; martial artist Dadisi Sanyika; and portrait artist Gale Fulton Ross. The documentary was selected for the American Film Institute’s tour, which included screening in Southeast Asia, and was recognized by the Black American Cinema Society. Since the making of the film, artists and members of the film crew have produced significant works as individual artists. They have worked in every part of the world and garnered multiple awards including Grammys, Emmys, and Oscars. Kamau Daáood and drummer Billy Higgins co-founded The World Stage, an internationally known performance space for the African American community in Leimert Park Village. The 40th anniversary of Life is a Saxophone is a timeless picture showing the role of poetry in the digital age and beyond. After the screening, hear from panelists S. Pearl Sharp, musician Roberto Miguel Miranda, and artist Gale Fulton Ross in a conversation and Q&A with the audience moderated by poet Benin Lemus. In addition to the feature-length documentary, the Opening Night screening will include three of the Official Selection poem-based films accepted to this year’s festival. The full selection of films will be screened the next day of the festival, Saturday, April 27, 1 - 6 PM.  The official schedule for the festival’s program will include a variety of experimental, narrative, documentary, and animated poem-based films. We are thrilled to showcase the work of filmmakers and poets pushing the boundaries of their artistic disciplines to create a whole new experience for lovers of both art forms. This year we are also excited to debut a short poetry film using components of AI technology made by Mike Gioia, co-founder of Blank Verse Films, a small film studio that produces poetry-related films and broadens the reach of poetry and literature in digital culture. In The Mike Kelly Gallery, we will showcase Photo News, an ongoing project by visual artist Jody Zellen comprised of daily montages built on headline fragments from lead stories in the daily newspaper combined with either news images or images of nature. The result is a series of heavily saturated images whose eerie hues highlight the surreal quality of the realities they reference. Follow the daily postings on instagram here. Also, The Los Angeles Review is co-presenting a poetry video of J. Michael Martinez’s Sonnet IX, made for “Latinx Digital Poeitcs: An Electronic Literature Folio” curated by Brent Ameneyro. Delicious food and drinks will be available on-site by our food vendor of the day, Empanada Factory, in addition to other light refreshments. Get your tickets before they’re gone! If you’re a Beyond Baroque member, tickets are available at discounted prices. For more information about the individual films selected and winners of the previous two editions of the festival, please visit poetryfilmfestival.org. Official Selection, International Poetry Film Festival, Los Angeles, 2024: A Red Negligee in a White Vanity Case, Ireland Authorities Drop Hate Crime, United States Cloister, India Doubt, United States Exposed to Each Other, Austria Gold, New Zealand Hidden Life, United States How to Make a Portrait of a Bird, France How to Outline Grief, United States Identity Portraits, United States It Started with a Breeze, United States Keep Going, India Lil' Red is Ridding the Wrong Way, United States Marimacha Fragments, United States Mother's Milk, south Africa My Beloved, Grey-Haired, Ukraine Zhuyka/Cud, USA On the Blue Summer Evenings, Spain Only Dark From Outside, United States Oot Here Mae Lane, Ireland Porch, United States Re:Growth,United States Son of Samoa, New Zealand Sonnet, Belgium The Bridge, United States The Carousel, Germany The Climate Change Volumes: Spring, United States The Distance Between the Staircase, UK The Garden, Echoes, Canada The Revolution Will Have its Sky, Germany Things you Have Forgotten to Take, Italy This Isn't a Requiem, It's a Seánce, United States Thinking 'Bout You by E.J. Okoth, Kenya Ver Gekomen, Netherlands Special Entries - United States Untitled - Mike Gioia Sonnet IX - J. Michael Martinez Photo News - Jody Zellen Bloodbank -1+1 S. Pearl Sharp |
