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ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival

The 13th edition of the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival begins today and takes place until 6 November at the Kino in der KulturBrauerei in Berlin. It was the first and is the largest international platform for short films based on poetry - poetry films.

Every year,  the festival offers poets, film and festival makers from all over the world a platform for creative exchange, brainstorming and meeting with a broad audience. With a competition, film programmes, poetry readings, retrospectives, exhibitions, performances, workshops, colloquia, lectures and a children's programme,  presents in various sections the diversity of the genre of poetry film.

This year's focus is the Ukraine. The festival provides a comprehensive, dedicated look at Ukrainian poetry films and poems. Every year, ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival presents a festival poem which then inspires the production of poetry films. Georg Leß is the author of this year's festival poem “The Haircut” – a witty, multilayered, and mysterious text. International filmmakers were invited to submit their visual interpretations of this poem. Poetry films reached the organisers from Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Greece, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

The three best film adaptations – by Beate Gördes (Germany), Patricia Delso Lucas (Belgium) & Johanna Wagner (Schweden), and Marc Neys (Belgium) – will be shown, along with the program’s longlisted works. Georg Leß will attend to read new poems. Odile Kennel, author of the 2021 Festival Poem, will speak with the author and directors about the relationship between poetry and film.

On 6 November in total four awards are going to be handed over, the “ZEBRA Award for the Best Poetry Film”, the “Goethe Film Award – Sustainable Living” and the “Ritter Sport Film Award”. The prizes will be awarded by the jury comprising Dagmara Kraus (poet, Germany), Obele Okoye (multidisciplinary artist, Nigeria) and Christine Franz (director and writer, Germany). An Audience award will also be awarded in the ZEBRino competition.

Find more information about the festival here.

 

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