sucking on words

sucking on words is a documentary film that features interviews with, and extensive performances by, the American poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It also features critical commentary on his intense and ground-breaking conceptualist practice from three of North America’s leading voices on avant-garde poetics. Shot on location in New York in 2007, the lively conversations featured in sucking on words are an ideal introduction to Goldsmith’s witty and provocative works, which are already regarded as hallmarks of 21st-century literature. The film showcases readings from some of his notorious books: No.111 (found phrases ending in the ‘r’ rhyme and filtered alphabetically by syllable count); Soliloquy (a transcription of every word Goldsmith spoke for a week); Day (a retyping of one day’s New York Times newspaper); Traffic (one day’s worth of hourly radio traffic bulletins); and The Weather (one year’s worth of radio weather bulletins).

It Started with Trees – Revolt in the Gezi Park

Protesters diary from Gezi Park - Taksim Square, Istanbul. Occupy Gezi movement started when the government decided to build shopping mall in place of the last green area that remained in the middle of Taksim Square.

De la rivière à la mer

How the Moon Conquered Pop

Musicians inspired by the Moon. Since the Apollo landings, the Moon has entered popular consciousness like never before. A journey through pop music's lunar obsession.

The Voyage of Bashô

A fictionalised documentary about the great Japanese poet Bashô (1644–1694), the spiritual father of haiku poetry. A monk, portraying the poet, journeys through Japan, following Bashô's journal and writing many of his haikus. A ruminant, poetic, Zen Buddhist observation of nature – a return to the lost paradise of unspoilt nature.

Catalan Poets

At underground film of the 1st Popular Festival of Catalan Poetry filmed in the Proce Theater in Barcelona on May 25, 1970, in solidarity with political prisoners. The participating poets were: Agustí Bartra, Joan Oliver (Pere IV), Salvador Espriu, Joan Brossa, Francesc Vallverdú and Gabriel Ferrater.

W.S. Merwin: To Plant a Tree

A documentary on the life and work of Poet Laureate, two-time Pulitzer winner, and environmental activist W.S. Merwin.

Borges: A Life in Poetry

A peculiar portrait of the Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) drawn by the extravagant and original look of the Spanish writer Fernando Arrabal, who establishes a bold parallelism between Borges' work and opinions and his own creations, both literary and cinematographic.

The Lady in the Book - Sylvia Plath, portraits

"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.

The Waters of the Bug River

Dedicated to the poet Paul Celan, the film traces the itinerary of the deportation of Jews from Czernowitz and Bucovina to Mikhailovka camp on the banks of the river Bug during WW2. Among them was the poet’s mother.

Zumiriki

Is it possible to travel twice to the same memory? The filmmaker built a cabin on an isolated riverbank, just opposite his childhood island, which had disappeared under the water after the construction of a dam. The goal was to go back to that place, which had become invisible. Only the trees of the island where he’d played stood firm in the middle of the water, like the masts of a broken toy boat, so the air was the only space left, the only vestige of the past to be conquered. This film is a diary of a castaway in memories: four months of a Walden experience in a lost paradise with two hens, a small vegetable garden and a clock that stopped forever at 11.36 and 23 seconds.

Queen's Illusion

In an era of political repression and growing social conservatism in Turkey, the Istanbul drag scene thrives.

The Book of Conrad

About the poet C.A.Conrad, an eccentric Elvis worshiping poet and tarot card reader, who confronts his violent past and the suspicious death of his boyfriend, Earth. The film attempts to unravel the mystery of Earth's death, while Conrad wrestles with his inner demons through a series of unconventional rituals and a tour of the deep South.

Tajemství života KHM

These Heathen Dreams

Once described by the press as "one of the most controversial figures on the Australian art scene", avant-garde poet and playwright Christopher Barnett achieved a level of notoriety in the Melbourne underground theatre scene during the ‘70s and ‘80s, before self-exiling to France. He remains there today, running an experimental theatre lab working with the marginalised and underprivileged, applauded by the establishment (including former French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault) and faithful to his belief that art can change the world. These Heathen Dreams is an intimate portrait of Barnett's life and revolutionary philosophy. Combining archival footage dating back to the ‘60s with contemporary observational documentation and text from Barnett's writings, it is a poignant and inspiring study of the power of both art and political activism.

Xela Arias. Poeta nas marxes