“A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer... He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.”
— E. B. White, from One Man's Meat.

Poetry in Motion

the antonym voice award

Poetry in Motion – Cinema and poetry have always complemented each other. While cinema has been lyrical and poetic, poetry has explored the visual. Directors have often used the lyrical quality of visuals to explore emotions or situations. We will look at world cinema as well as contemporary cinematic take of Indian poetry films apart from a competition on the same.

Kolkata Poetry Confluence is calling for submission of Poetry Films for The Antonym Voices Award 2022.

For this competition, poetry films need to conform to the following categories :

Poetic Interpretation: Videos created to bring new meaning and dimension to pre-existing poetry. Any poems used for this purpose must be in the public domain or else used with written consent of the author.

Video Poetry: Poets using video form as their tool for poetic expression

Poetry by Video Artists: Artists using text visually along with audio enhancing the poetic meaning.

Submission Rules :

  1. The poetry films categorized as above can be in any language but need to have English subtitle if the spoken language used is not English.
  2. All films need to be longer than 3 minutes and within a maximum length of 6 minutes including the beginning and end credits.
  3. All submissions need to be new and not already published or distributed through any media.
  4. All submissions should be sent to KPCVoices2022@gmail.com
  5. Submission package should include the following:
    1. Submitted Film in Full HD mp4 format.
    2. Brief synopsis about the film.
    3. Poster for the film
    4. At least 3 still images from your film (for promotional purposes.)
    5. Poet’s consent to be provided if applicable.
    6. Content used in the film like music, images, footages, if any, should be your own or with due permission.  It should not breach any copyrights. In case it is copyrighted then makers must provide written permission for its usage in the film and should be part of the submission package
    7. All submissions will clearly mention in the credit the people involved in the making of the film.

Viewing

  1. Kolkata Poetry Confluence will have the right to showcase all submitted poetry films in its channel for seven days when films will be opened for people’s choice voting.
  2. All awarded films will be published in The Antonym magazine while the producer of the film will have the right to showcase anywhere after the competition is over.

Award:

There will be The Antonym Voices Award of Rs 10000 INR , Rs 5000 INR and Rs 3000 INR for the top 3 films under the category of jury award.

There will also be The Antonym People’s Choice Award of Rs 10000 that will be decided on popular voting.

The award is given for the film and not for any individual. However the director of the wining films will be invited for the Kolkata Poetry Confluence event 11-12th June held in Kolkata with travel and accommodation provided for travelers within India.

Key Dates:

Submission opens on 4th April and closes on 15th May.

Submission will be showcased on KPC Youtube Channel from 23rd May to 30th May for voting.

Awards will be announced on 1st June, 2022.

The top 10 films will be showcased on 12th June during the Kolkata Poetry Confluence in the presence of the Jury members.

Panel Discussion

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 Flowing through the Lenses

Cinema and poetry have always complemented each other. While cinema has been lyrical and poetic, poetry has explored the visual. Directors have often used the lyrical quality of visuals to explore emotions or situations. Again, cinema has a moving language, universal in its visual grammar, which can set free poetry from the barriers of written and spoken language and communicate to the world audience. 

This panel will talk about this symbiotic relationship between poetry and cinema, tracing the history of amalgamation of the two, and look into the scope of furthering the relationship, keeping in mind the popularity of poetry films as a new media art.

 

Screening and Conversation on  Poetry Films from India and the World