Film Categories: Literary/theatre

  • Lesson, The

    A close look at the hilarious representation of language inspired by the absurd, existentialist writings of Eugene Ionesco.

  • Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The

    Using the cut-out style of animation, I tried to marry the classic engravings of Gustave Dore to the classic poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge through a classic narrator: Orson Welles. It’s a long opium dream of the old Mariner (Welles) who wantonly killed the albatross and suffered the pains of the damned for it. (LJ) Original narration by Orson Welles; made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. “The film, far from being a mere visual accompaniment to the poem, has an integrity of its own. Throughout the film, serpents, butterflies and other creatures from Jordan’s…

  • PoeTix

    PoeTix is radical and mundane Three word poems Edited into perversion and delirium Verbal refrigerator poetry Following Aristotle’s dramatic structure Creating a heap for really cheap

  • Her 13th Incarnation

    Told through a montage of personal photographs and video images, backed with dynamic, cutting-edge prose/poetics, “Her 13th Incarnation” is one Black, queer woman’s exploration of gender, sexuality, and the infinite fluidity of identity and desire.

  • Term, The

    A lovely and spare animated film illustrating the poem, “The Term,” by William Carlos Williams. The film is an homage to the work of Williams and to the school of Imagist Poetry, which he founded and best exemplifies. The filmmaker chose this particular poem because of the power of the imagery, the constant metamorphosis, the musicality of the words and the gentle humanistic quality of the message. All these things lend themselves well to film: particularly to the style of animation she has developed. The animation is hand-drawn pencil on paper, fully animated twelve drawings per second. The drawings illustrate…

  • In Sin

    A classic tale of impossible love. An angel and a monster fall in love, but their union is prohibited because they are from different worlds. Created in 24P High-Definition video, “In Sin” is quite possibly the world’s first High-Def stop-motion animation.

  • breath

    A beautiful cameraless film based on the text and structure of a haiku, “breath” explores the interplay between sound, image and written word. The soundtrack is created by an optical light reading of three haikus and one short poem, all written by ninth-century Japanese poetesses. The film’s structure is based on the five-seven-five syllabic composition of a typical haiku.

  • Ode to a Sparrow

    “Ode to a Sparrow” is a profile of Canadian poet Peter Van Toorn. Van Toorn’s book “Mountain Tea” was nominated for a Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 1984. The film celebrates Van Toorn’s poetic insight and language, and captures the concentration and labour of Mountain Tea’s creation. “Ode to a Sparrow” includes readings from Van Toorn, conversations with some of his friends, and lyrical visuals to accompany a reading of Van Toorn’s essay about the importance of the title of a poem, “Handy Handles.” “Mountain Tea” was unavailable for many years, but was reissued by Signal Editions in 2004.…

  • Sea Horses and Flying Fish

    A one-minute animation treat that celebrates the art of sound poetry as Christian Bök recites words from Hugo Ball, one of the leading pioneers of phonetic poetry.

  • Gulliver’s Travels

    Held hostage by her dolls, a girl is forced into a showdown between good and evil in this offbeat stop-motion film. Originally made for LA Flicker’s “Attack of the 50 Foot Reels” (one roll of Super 8 film, edited in camera, sound created without seeing the footage).