What about the law

Animation: Charles Badenhorst 

Text: Adam Small 

South Africa 2014, 3:14 min

2016 - Jury Award Best Poetry Film

This film is part of a series of short films of classical Afrikaans poems. This poem is an iconic work condemning segregation laws under Apartheid South Africa. It tells a story of a white woman who falls in love with a coloured man. It is a conversation between the woman, the man and the community about how the law is killing their love and ultimately takes their lives.

Steel and Air

Direction: Chris and Nick Libbey

Text: John Ashbery

USA 2015, 3:34 min

2016 - Audience Award

This film aims to capture and enhance Ashbery’s poem by chronicling a man’s journey through life and the wonderful, boring, and ultimately finite experiences that come with it. And then it got very cool.

Standard Time

Direction: Hanna Slak and Lena Reinhold 

Text: Daniela Seel 

Germany 2017, 3:00 min 

2017 - Jury Award

A short experimental film based on a poem by Daniela Seel which plays with different layers of sound, image and meaning.

Heartbreak

Direction: Dave Tynan 

Text: Emmet Kirwan 

Ireland 2017, 6:51 min 

2017 - Special Mention

“Heartbreak”, written by Emmet Kirwan and directed by Dave Tynan, tells the story of a young schoolgirl (Jordanne Jones) from her teenage pregnancy to raising her son in modern Ireland.

The last time

Direction and Text: Christine Hooper 

GB 2016, 3:50 min 

2017 - Audience Award

One woman’s struggle to stub out love’s flame.

The Desktop Metaphor

Direction: Helmie Stil

Text: Caleb Parkin 

GB 2017, 2:48 min 

2018 - Jury Award

“The Desktop Metaphor” is a film by Helmie Stil of Caleb Parkin’s second placed poem in the National Poetry Competition 2016. An isolation of life, scanning through it.

Blue Flash Flash

Direction: Jane Glennie 

Text: Julia Bird 

GB 2017, 0:39 min 

2018 - Special Mention

“Blue Flash Flash” describes the moment in a child’s life in which they learn a new word – octopus – and their neurons act to lock down the knowledge forever. From minuscule beginnings, the acquisition of a language is fundamental to our identity. Language gives us words in our minds and describes who we are to ourselves. It is the facade in our interactions with each other.

Patata Day

Direction: Peter Böving 

Text: Marie Nimier

Germany 2016, 4:05 min 

2018 - Audience Award

This cinematic parable tells the story of five people in a diner who spin a yarn about potato dishes. In the next scene, funnily animated potatoes appear. The audience cheerfully follows the film but understands that a highly topical issue is served with the potatoes on the plate.

Hiatus

Regie: Vivian Ostrovsky

Text: Claire Lispector (1920–1977)

Brazil 2018, 6:20 min 

2019 - Jury Award - Best Video

The protagonist of this film is the reclusive, introspective Ukrainian-Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector. It is based on a single TV interview broadcast only after her death. What she says in the 1977 interview is still very pertinent and corresponds to a feeling of ,in-betweenness’ which I myself feel today.

The right to fall apart

Animation: Rika Tarigan

Text: Yara M. Ahmed

Germany / Egypt 2019, 3 min 

2019 - Jury Award - Best Animation

“The Right to Fall Apart” is an experimental short film that seeks to depict the labors of a body burdened with depression and worry. It explores how we navigate through the severity of emotional and mental restlessness. Stressed by intensity, the protagonist tries to escape into a fictional oasis of words, language and images.

Hate for sale

Animation: Anna Eijsbouts

Text: Neil Gaiman

Netherlands 2017, 2:39 min

2019 - Special Mention

A stop-motion animated film about the world we live in. A world in which we consume hate as much as we are consumed by it. This film examines the alluring and tempting qualities of this devouring emotion and why we keep buying into it.

The Opened Field