Our first inclusive World Poetry Slam Championship will take place in Brussels from the 26th to the 29th of September 2022. Apart from the championship itself, during these days we will be offering a satellite program of diverse activities, collaborating with Brussel´s based artists and organizations, to make this an unforgettable experience for all!
We have invited 40 champions from 37 countries around the world! This is the biggest international Poetry Slam Championship, where all the poets are already winners!
In the World Poetry Slam Championship, our aim is to harness the unseen power and give a platform to the local artists of Brussels and the 40 national champions who have been invited, that would go unheard if not given the space to create. We seek to attract the people who search for a deeper connection on the art of poetry scene along with other famous poetry events in the city of Brussels in Belgium.
As part of the festival we propose to put together, we would like to channel all of this energy and inspiration to create a place where it can be transmitted to a local audience as well as to the foreign audience who would like to see what the up and coming poetry slam and spoken word scene is truly about.
We have invited 40 poetry slam national champions from around the world, guaranteeing the quality of the performances throughout our festival. The countries invited are Algeria, Madagascar, Guinea, Botswana, Togo, Mauritius, Chad, Cameroon, South Africa, Mozambique, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Croatia, Slovenia, Cyprus, France, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Brazil, Cuba, Uruguay, Chile, Costa Rica, Canada, Guatemala, Haiti, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Mali and DR Congo. Openings of the semi-finals of the championship will do Greece and North Macedonia.
The World Poetry Slam Championship will be the 2nd biggest festival organized by WPSO (World Poetry Slam Organization), after the European Championship we organized in 2021 in Brussels.
Apart of the championship and the competition part for the new World Poetry Slam Champion 2022, we will have various side activities during the week of the festival, such as documentary screenings, a theater play, demo competitions, slam workshops, open mics every night, an LGBTQI+ oriented spoken word show and more.
We are thrilled to make dreams come true as we collect video poetry and spoken word works from around the world to showcase in our festival. The championship will take place in Brussels at the grand venue Cinema Kinepolis, in a large room with a capacity of 600 people capacity. We are collaborating with one of the most beautiful libraries in Brussels, Muntpunt, where we will have most of our side activities and a box for projections where people can enter and watch video poetry and spoken word video performances from around the world. We are also collaborating with Cine Ritcs where we will screen the documentaries and some of the videos selected. Moreover, we will have various points throughout all our venues with small screens where people will be able to stop and watch the videos selected.
After the festival, all the videos selected will be published on our website and they will be featured there until the end of December 2022. The festival will screen 20 video projects developed through the medium of poetry.
There are no restrictions regarding when the film was produced or if the film has premiered regionally or internationally. There are no restrictions on subject matter, theme, topic, or the language of origin. The World Poetry Slam Championship will accept submissions of poetry films, filmpoems, digital-poetry, poetry video, Poetry, spoken word films, visual poetry, choreopoems, poetrinca, media poetry, and all films and videos that are driven visually by text or voice.
In the videos we aim to see the "Duende" in each one of you. Basic element in our selection procedure will be to make us feel something strong and capture our heart. In the case that less than 20 videos will be selected due to lack of “duende“ in the artistic projects that we will receive, we will play more than one time the projects selected in a loop. The festival also calls for experimental film and video works that explores poetry or literature whether it will be oral, written, visual, or symbolic mediums. This includes non-narrative work and the avant-garde.
All films should be subtitled either in English, or Dutch or French or Spanish. The film can be in any language as long as there are subtitles in one of these languages. Even the videos in English should have subtitles, as this is an inclusive festival.
All the videos selected will be featured to our website and will be promoted to our social media.