Cadence Video Poetry Festival

** COVID-19 UPDATE: As the state of film exhibition and physical gathering remains uncertain during the pandemic, Cadence will take place in April as scheduled. While we are planning for a hybrid festival, NWFF will continue adapting to evolving recommendations to protect the public from COVID-19. Whether we gather online, in-person, or some hybrid variation of the two, community, dialogue, and education through media arts WILL persist, during Cadence’s 5th year serving the video poetry artist community! **

Verse meets visuals in motion during a series of cinepoem screenings, ekphrastic responses, and generative workshops celebrating National Poetry Month.

Northwest Film Forum is soliciting video poetry for inclusion in Cadence Video Poetry Festival, with selected submissions screening in April 2022.

Video poetry is language as light. As an art form, video poetry is lucid and liminal—on the threshold of the literary and the moving image. It articulates the poetic image visually, rather than metaphorically—it shifts words from page to screen, from ink to light. A video poem makes meaning that would not exist if text was without image, image without text. It is language-based video work or a video-based poem. Video poetry is a literary genre presented as visual media.

We are looking for works that fit within the following categories of video poetry.

• Adaptations/Ekphrasis: Videos created to bring new meaning and dimension to pre-existing poetry. Any poems used for this purpose must be in the public domain or else used with written consent of the author.

• Collaboration: Video poems created in collaboration between a video artist and writer.

• Video by Poets: Poets creating video from, or as, their writing.

• Poetry by Video Artists: Video artists using text visually or through audio intrinsic to the poetic meaning.

• Wild Card: Video work that’s poetically informed or poetry that’s visually informed that doesn’t neatly fit into one of the other categories.

Cadence Video Poetry Festival is presented by NWFF and programmed in collaboration with Chelsea Werner-Jatzke and Rana San.

Image: "Black Paint" (Hanan Hassan, Seattle, WA)

ABOUT NORTHWEST FILM FORUM
Founded in Seattle in 1995 as an independent film and arts nonprofit, Northwest Film Forum incites public dialogue and creative action through collective cinematic experiences. Each year the Forum presents hundreds of films, festivals, community events, multidisciplinary performances, and public discussions. As a comprehensive visual media organization, the Forum offers educational workshops and artist services for film and media makers at all stages of their development. More information is available at nwfilmforum.org.