Bert Schierbeek/The Door

Hart Crane: An Exegesis

2012

James Franco interviews three experts on the poet Hart Crane, whose life was the subject of his feature The Broken Tower (2011).

Between Pudukkottai & Singapore

2017

This short documentary features poet N Rengarajan, a migrant worker from Pudukkottai, India who sustains a practice of poetry as a way of life while working in the construction sector in Singapore. The film, structured around three of his poems, seeks to visually mirror the rhythm and tone of his writing. Together, verse and visuals strive to draw attention to the poet's acute illuminations of the realities of migrant life.

Burns in the USA

2017

Robert Burns was well aware of the revolution taking place across the Atlantic as he grew up. The poet was inspired. And America was to be inspired by him. From Abraham Lincoln to Frederick Douglass, and Walt Whitman to Bob Dylan, some of the most significant figures in American politics and culture have cited Burns as an influence.

About the Possibility of a Life

2005

This film is a documentary portrait of the great Bulgarian Writer and poet Valeri Petrov.

The Lady in the Book - Sylvia Plath, portraits

2016

"The Lady in the Book" is Sylvia Plath, a major author of 20th-century American poetry and a feminist icon following her sudden death at the age of thirty. This film offers a glimpse into her world and work, through encounters with women who live today in the places where she grew up.

Great Poets: In Their Own Words

2014

A journey into the BBC archives unearthing glorious performances and candid interviews from some of Britain's greatest poets.

Iron Moon

2016

Few of us have stopped to consider the lives of the workers who manufacture the objects that make up our daily lives. We use these objects without knowing anything about the Foxconn plants in which they are made, or even where these factories are located, let alone who works in them. One such worker was the young Chinese poet Xu Lizhi, who, at the age of 24, jumped out of a building not far from where he worked at the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen.

L'Arbre et le Soleil

1990

This film is dedicated to Mas-Félipe Delavouët, the poet discovered by Lawrence Durrell, who wrote 14,000 verses in Provençal over a period of thirty years, and who died on November 18, 1990. "The sky, history and Mediterranean and Provençal myths are the inexhaustable wellspring of this man rooted down there, near Salon-de-Provence" (J.-D. Pollet). "Mas-Félipe Delavouët wrote five books in Provençal, 14,000 verses. A sort of "Odyssey". Of myths. What is stunning in him is that he always talks of disappearances. Cities, works, men, writings, television, etc., everything has to disappear. In order to be reborn. No pain. A sort of hand-to-hand of man and nature. During the filming, I would simply throw out some words... For example, one time I said "creation" and he said: "creation doesn't exist..., creation is before me..., I can only read creation"; this sentence describes Delavouët perfectly (J.-D. Pollet, 1989 and 1993).

Frank O'Connor: Between Two Streams

2016

Celebrated as one of the masters of the short story, Frank O'Connor was also an important translator of classical Irish poetry. Cork poet and writer Liam O'Muirthile tells O'Connor's forgotten story. He argues you cannot understand O'Connor's voice in English without understanding his natural writing voice, which is rooted in Irish.

The Music of Life

2009

Eldar Ryazanov reads his poetry. An introspective movie on his multifaceted work.

A World Is Turning

1948

A lost chapter in black British film: extraordinary rushes from a documentary showcasing talented members of the black community.

Jean Genet: Saint, martyr et poète

1975

Poetic stroll in the work of Jean Genet.

Isla Negra: Neruda y el mar

1990

The Peculiar Sensation of Being Pat Ingoldsby

2022

Seamus Murphy’s documentary examines Irish writer Pat Ingoldsby’s unique world. Ingoldsby’s poems and candid anecdotes bear witness to a visceral relationship with his beloved Dublin, fellow Dubliners and anything that catches his interest. Personal challenges, a sensitive humanity and a lifetime as a maverick have taught him to harness reality and reach well beyond it to avenge the banal with absurd magic. It heals him as it does us.

Broken Palace

2014

A short documentary about the rapidly disappearing era of heritage movie palaces and the film going experience once offered within those hallowed walls.