AOTEAROA POETRY FILM FESTIVAL, New Zealand, 20–21 November
Establishing a stand-alone, annual festival in what is really a niche genre is a real achievement. It takes courage, creativity and also, sticking power. I know the experience – the feeling of finishing one and immediately thinking about the next. Aotearoa is now in its second year but already well established, and is one of those poetry film events that you really wish you could attend. This is partly because New Zealand seems to not only have a really creative approach to film and poetry, but also how to celebrate it, rather than focus on the competitive element. They encourage the innovative and eclectic, and this year it is organised in collaboration with Victoria University of Wellington. As they say on the website:
‘The Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival is an event entirely devoted to the celebration and showcase of poetry film. The Festival will feature a poetry film competition, workshops, seminars, poetry readings and retrospectives and it will offer the opportunity to showcase the diversity of poetry film produced both in Aotearoa New Zealand and overseas.’ https://www.aotearoapff.com/
I really like this balance between screenings and other options, particular poetry readings and retrospectives. The background to the festival inspires me. Firstly, festival founder and co-director Alfio Leotta is an award-winning filmmaker who has written a number of of books on film. His Canadian co-director Tyler Shane Tesolin (completing a research PhD in film at Victoria University) ‘has been making movies his entire life, focusing primarily on the intersection between poetry and film’ and has written two books of poetry. These backgrounds are important to me – where those involved either write poetry or make films (ideally both). I am always interested in the creative trajectories of the organisers and judges, as well.
The jurors this year are equally as talented and impressive. Nova Paul (Ngāpuhi) is a filmmaker, writer, and Indigenous rights researcher. Her creative practice explores experimental film history and Indigenous filmmaking. She lectured for over two decades at AUT and established the Cinematic Arts minor. She has exhibited in all major galleries in New Zealand and shown in many international film festivals, including the Rotterdam International Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival
Missy Molloy is a senior lecturer in film at Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington in Aotearoa New Zealand, where she lectures on women’s, queer, posthuman and activist cinemas. She is co-author of Screening the Posthuman (Oxford University Press 2023) and co-editor of ReFocus: The Films of Susanne Bier (Edinburgh University Press 2018). Her recent publications include the video essay, “Art Cinema’s Suicidal Posthuman Women” ([in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image Studies 2024), and “Indigenous Futurist and Women-Centred Dystopian Film” (Feminist Posthumanism and Postfeminist Humanism, Bloomsbury 2023)
Dafydd Sills-Jones is an Associate Professor at Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. He is from Aberystwyth in West Wales. His films are concerned with places, identity, and language.
I should also add that my poem and film Flight has been included this year, so I feel very honoured to be able to share that news. As it was a much more personal poem and film about my childhood I am really touched that it is being shown. The poem is from a commissioned forthcoming collection Unexibited, in 2025.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfbA3rlFOtg&t=1s
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