Poetic Short Films

The purpose of the poetic short films project is to move poems off the page and onto the screen, to make it more accessible and reach people who otherwise mightn't pick up a poetry book or journal.

If we're honest, not many people read poetry. Okay, some do, but most of us were well and truly turned off poetry thanks to painful high school English classes where poetry was just trying to recognise and analyse metaphors and similes and alliteration and onomatopoeia (and yes, I did just have to check how to spell that).

So this is poetry by stealth. Poems as short films! And not just some pretty leaves rustling in the wind to a voiceover - as pretty as that can be - but little plotlines that reveal themselves during the course of the film/poem (so yes, you'll still hear or read the poem in its entirety, as well as seeing it interpreted visually!). My poems often talk about depression/mental health and sex and relationships and Tinder (sigh, oh Tinder, how many poems you've inspired...).

Imagine if poetry and music videos/short films had a baby. And that baby is some poetic short films. The plan is to produce a season of four poetic short films - in the big picture dream, there'd be a new season produced each year, but right now it's all about trying to get this first season made. A small grant has already been received to support making them, but it's not as much as is needed.

The funds will go towards paying filmmakers' costs - paying them and the crew and actors, venue costs, etc. Everything I manage to raise goes towards the costs of making the films.

The first of the poetic short films has been made by a student filmmaker as her final project for her filmmaking course (one of my aims is that each season would include a student/new filmmaker in amongst the filmmakers), and she made something amazing on the tiniest of budgets. Hitting $2000 would mean the other three filmmakers would have tiny-but-hopefully-workable budgets (although still smell-of-an-oily-rag stuff). Hitting the stretch goal - or going further! - would allow some breathing room and more possibilities.