OBHÉAL – HYBRID WINTER WARMER, CORK and live online – a rich feast
OBHÉAL hybrid WINTER WARMER festival, CORK 22-24th November and online
Ó Bhéal (Irish for ‘by word of mouth’, or ‘from the mouth’) is here again with its 12th Winter Warmer festival. Ó Bhéal is true to its name, in that poetry film cohabits so snugly with a very full schedule of poetry in many other forms such as experimental theatre, reading to music, spoken word etc. And by extension, this is also its 4th hybrid edition, being live online as well.
My poetry film Mr Sky with poem by Lucy English was selected in 2019 when Fiona Aryan deservedly won, and it was a great occasion, both in the poetry films shown but also visiting Cork itself, and Cork Indie Film Festival was also in full swing providing a lively hub.
Founder and Director Paul Casey has to be applauded for hosting poetry events continuously since April 2007. At first once a week until December 2019, then once a month, he has been tireless in promoting poetry not only in the Cork community but with joint ventures further afield such as the Twin Cities project (Cork-Coventry). The first poetry film festival was held in November 2010. Ó Bhéal really feels like it has evolved naturally, with a strong committee team and more recently leading Irish poetry filmmaker Colm Scully to provide poetry film workshops. Not only is there a sense of a percolation that is continually bubbling up between poetry and film through all the seasons, but at each Winter Warmer the winner of the international poetry film competition receives a beautiful, unique award by glass artist Michael Ray. What more could you ask for?
For 2024 over 50 poets from seven countries will be performing, with some live online, and Ó Bhéal is mindful of its own heritage, presenting ‘bilingual readings, showcasing the best of today’s gaelic-speaking poets’.
The programme gives you a feeling of the varied riches on offer: ‘The festival includes a haiku workshop with Anton Floyd, a poetry-film workshop with Colm Scully, the launch of Southword issue 47, two music/poetry fusions from Séamus Barra Ó Súilleabháin, an experimental theatre performance from Strive Theatre and MacBóchra, an Open-Mic Showcase featuring fifteen poets from five Cork-based regular open-mic events, plus a Closed-Mic set, for ten poets from Ó Bhéal’s regular open-mic sessions during 2024.
The shortlist and prize-giving for Ó Bhéal’s 12th International Poetry-Film Competition will be screened and simulcast, as will an additional, special selection of poetry-films made in Ireland.’
I would recommend visiting Cork for this very special festival. There will be two screenings on the morning of Sunday 24th November 11.00am-12.00pm and 12.30pm-1.30pm at Nano Nagle Place, Cork & streamed via the festival website festival stage and Facebook & YouTube channels.
Three examples of political poetry films include: Pamela Falkenberg and Jack Cochran with the film Migrations from the poem of the same name by Robin Davidson. Their use of animation excels with this subject which reminds us, and particularly with the dark election results, that everyone in America is an immigrant other than the indigenous peoples.
And, unfortunately so very topical, with the flash floods in South Eastern Spain recently, Australian poet and filmmaker Ian Gibbins’ Types of Rain reminds us of the horrific effects of Climate Change that are happening as we speak. As he says ‘How do we understand a future when we have failed to comprehend the past?’
I was one of the jurors at Weimar Poetry Film Festival this year, and another political film that I voted as winner of that festival was Berkovich by German director Anya Ryzhkova. This is a chilling true account of being imprisoned ‘detained’ in Russia for your creative output.
Amnesty International states: ‘Theatre director Evgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk are being arbitrarily detained since 5 May and face prosecution for authoring and staging “Finist Yasny Sokol,” an award-winning play about women who left for Syria and married members of armed groups. Both women face absurd charges of “justifying terrorism” which carry up to seven years in prison. Russian authorities must immediately release them and drop all charges.’
‘The film is based on a speech by the Russian theater director Evgenia Berkovich. Together with the playwright Svetlana Petriychuk, Evgenia Berkovich has been under arrest and jailed since May 2023 on charges of “public calls to terrorism”. On the ninth of January 2024, before the verdict was supposed to be announced, she read her final speech in verse.’
On another note, dance also features in the finalists this year with Butterfly, from the poem Butterfly by Marco Sonzogni, which is described as a poetic dance film about art, beauty and death. It is directed by Alfio Leotta (New Zealand), the founder and director of the Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival in New Zealand.
It is also good to see work by long-established Galician filmmaker and poet Celia Parra – Un rastro de luz (A trace of light) – which contemplates spirituality and mortality, through the Goddess Navia in the flow of the river. Celia was executive producer of the Videopoetry documentary Versogramas / Verses and Frames (Belen Montero and Juan Lesta, 2018).
A personal favourite of mine is this film by Canadian Kim Traitor Hwlhits’um | Signs which ‘describes a boat trip from Canoe Pass to Lamalchi Bay on Penelakut Island off the west coast of British Columbia, during which Hwlitsum knowledge holder Lindsey Wilson traced the traditional path of Hwlitsum First Nation on their yearly hunting and gathering rounds, and shared his memories of his time on the Salish Sea. This poetry film is part of the installation “walk quietly: ts’ekw’unshun kws qututhun (walk quietly with respect and care along the shore),” a guided artist-scientist walk along Hwlhits’um (Brunswick Point/Canoe Pass) in collaboration with Hwlitsum First Nation. www.walkquietly.ca
And finally, my own film Flight, which is a very personal poem and poetry film about my childhood relationship with my mother, who suffered depression, though I didn’t know it at the time. We rattled around in a large, cold house – my father’s dream, bought at auction – but there were parts she never visited in her entire life. I cleaned and looked after the house and garden to help her, from the age of five. The visual imagery also includes samples of my neo-expressionist paintings and ‘Floor’ carpet, floor and dust sculpture from the 1980s. The poem is also inspired by an ekphrastic poem I wrote about Lanyon’s work ‘The Last Green Mile’ (Transitional : Otter Gallery Anthology, Chichester University, 2015). ‘Flight’ is from the forthcoming commissioned collection – Unexhibited, available in 2025.
https://www.obheal.ie/blog/competition-poetry-film/poetry-film-shortlist-2024/
https://www.obheal.ie/WinterWarmer/PoetryFestival2024.htm
