Jorge Luis Borges: una vita di poesia

A peculiar portrait of the Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) drawn by the extravagant and original look of the Spanish writer Fernando Arrabal, who establishes a bold parallelism between Borges' work and opinions and his own creations, both literary and cinematographic.

A Farra do Circo

This documentary highlights the evolution of Brazil's Circo Voador venue from homespun artists' performance space to national cultural institution.

حبيبي بيستناني عند البحر

Hasan Hourani, a Palestinian poet and illustrator, died aged 29 in Jaffa while trying to rescue his nephew from the sea. Shortly after, the filmmaker Mais Darwazah discovers his drawings and poems and feels drawn to Hourani's world— a universe outside space and time; a place of wonder, discovery, and freedom. Motivated by this kinship, Darwazah embarks on a journey to her homeland, Palestine: a place she has never known.

Barson Baad

“After So Long // बरसों बाद” is a visual poetry set in Mumbai (India) and voiced by Simha and their parents to symbolise their connection with each other; a walkabout through time and memories. Directed by Varsha Panikar, the film takes inspiration from vintage-home-movie culture to create a contemplative and nostalgic vignette of an artist’s spiritual journey out of the darkness and into the light.

Searching Eva

This is the tale of a young woman, growing up in the age of the internet and turning the search for oneself into a public spectacle, allowing kids from all over the world to live their life through hers. Through her fragmented personalities you see the emergence of a new generation, in which the concept of a fixed identity has grown old.

A Life Together: Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon

Performance and conversation with husband-and-wife poets Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon at a New Jersey festival, in their Wilmot (N.H.) hometown and their Eagle Pond farmhouse.

W.S. Merwin: To Plant a Tree

A documentary on the life and work of Poet Laureate, two-time Pulitzer winner, and environmental activist W.S. Merwin.

Les Eaux du Boug

Dedicated to the poet Paul Celan, the film traces the itinerary of the deportation of Jews from Czernowitz and Bucovina to Mikhailovka camp on the banks of the river Bug during WW2. Among them was the poet’s mother.

Assaltaram a Gramática

Through performatic acts and some exposition, a group of poets of that 1980's generation make great use of words, poems and rebellious acts criticizing the then current generation and its lack of admiration for the poetic works that were being created.

Le voyage de Bashô

A fictionalised documentary about the great Japanese poet Bashô (1644–1694), the spiritual father of haiku poetry. A monk, portraying the poet, journeys through Japan, following Bashô's journal and writing many of his haikus. A ruminant, poetic, Zen Buddhist observation of nature – a return to the lost paradise of unspoilt nature.

We Real Cool

Using simple, illuminative paper-cut puppetry, this enchanting video imagines the moment of witness that inspired Gwendolyn Brooks to write her landmark poem, “We Real Cool.”

The Doors

The story of the famous and influential 1960s rock band and its lead singer and composer, Jim Morrison.

sucking on words

sucking on words is a documentary film that features interviews with, and extensive performances by, the American poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It also features critical commentary on his intense and ground-breaking conceptualist practice from three of North America’s leading voices on avant-garde poetics. Shot on location in New York in 2007, the lively conversations featured in sucking on words are an ideal introduction to Goldsmith’s witty and provocative works, which are already regarded as hallmarks of 21st-century literature. The film showcases readings from some of his notorious books: No.111 (found phrases ending in the ‘r’ rhyme and filtered alphabetically by syllable count); Soliloquy (a transcription of every word Goldsmith spoke for a week); Day (a retyping of one day’s New York Times newspaper); Traffic (one day’s worth of hourly radio traffic bulletins); and The Weather (one year’s worth of radio weather bulletins).

Cseh Tamás énekel

Smoky little clubs, late nights, late nights of conversation over a glass of beer and a guitar. The lyricist Géza Bereményi and the composer-performer Tamás Cseh are the creators of the most topical and accurate songs of the 70s and 80s, expressing the mood of the "30s and 40s" of that time - a mood that was their own destiny. This stunning recording from 1980 includes songs like Tangó, Álomfejtés, Szabó Kálmán tegnap este..., A 100. éjszaka, A legjobb viccek, Születtem Magyarországon, A dédapa dala, Egy bogár, Krakkói vonat, Az ócska cipő, Filmdal.

Sénac, Jean. Algérien, Poète

Jean Sénac, born in Béni Saf in Algeria in 1926 and died in Algiers in 1973, is today considered one of the great French writers and poets and the only one of his reputation to have accompanied the Algerian revolution before November 1954. part of all the debates and got involved, very early and with immense enthusiasm, in a work of commitment which ended badly. His poetry, his sexual preferences and his political lyricism work against him: rejected as much by the Pieds Noirs as by the FLN activists then by the power in place in Algiers, Jean Sénac was assassinated in 1973 at his home in Algiers, in circumstances never clarified.

A Passion for Churches

Sir John Betjeman visits and explains the architecture of various churches in the Diocese of Norwich. Among those visited: Sandringham church on the Queen's private estate, the Holy House of Our Lady of Walsingham and Norwich Cathedral.

Sing! Fight! Sing! Fight! From LeRoi to Amiri

The story of how Everett Leroy Jones became Amiri Baraka, from his childhood to the mid '60s, is told through interviews recorded in the late '90s.

...a slovo Básňou sa stalo

Sono Guido e non Guido

Poets Against the Bomb

An event organised by CND pits the bomb against poetry. Hear artists who hoped that words and rhymes could put an end to destructive times.