Sunday 2nd November 2025
3.00pm and 4.30pm
(after the Irish Poetry Films at 1pm)
All shortlisted films will be screened at Ó Bhéal’s Poetry Film Festival at the Cork Arts Theatre, Carroll’s Quay, Cork. The shortlists will also be streamed online on Monday 3rd November, simulcast via our Vimeo and YouTube channels @ 6.00pm (Irish Shortlist), 7.30pm and 9.00pm (International Shortlists). Times are in Irish Standard Time.
30 films were chosen from 176 submissions received from 140 filmmakers in 41 countries. The 2025 shortlist represents 18 countries: Australia, Belgium, China, Dubai, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Mexico, Northern Ireland, Palestine, Spain, Taiwan, The Netherlands, Turkey, UK, Ukraine and the USA.
Judges Colm Scully & Paul Casey, will select one winner to receive the Ó Bhéal International award for best poetry-film, designed by glass artist Michael Ray, plus a cash prize of 500 euros. The best Irish Poetry Film will also be chosen, with a cash prize of 250 euros. Winners will be announced directly after the shortlist screenings at the Cork Arts Theatre, and online on Monday 3rd November.
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Sunday 2nd November @ 3:00pm Cork Arts Theatre |
Poem: A Wide River Divides Us
Synopsis – A Wide River Divides Us celebrates the city of Derry/Londonderry, its energy and modernity. Following the poet from the east bank of the river to the west. She turns away from the Foyle to sweep through the embattled streets of her seventies’ childhood, when a chance encounter unlocks memories of her Protestant working-class heritage and experience, causing her to reassess the complexity of loss, displacement and belonging.
Director: Jesse Adlam (Northern Ireland)
Jesse Adlam is a cinematographer from Devon. Her work spans poetry films, short dramas, documentaries and branded content. Her films have screened internationally at festivals including The Cinema Museum (London), Indy Film Awards (Amsterdam), REEL Film Festival (Texas) and FIVC International Screendance Festival (Chile).
Poem: Essex Man (Prepares For Death)
Synopsis – A journey of re-memory to the evocative places of the poet’s childhood. At first, a return after fifty years to explore traces of memory, and to bring them to consciousness; to recover a sense of safety, and to chart the routes once walked that linked those safe spaces. But then a journey to the edges of that safety, to crossing points that once represented movement into spaces of trauma.
Director: Peter Urpeth (UK)
Peter Urpeth is a writer, musician, and filmmaker based in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. He has spent over thirty years working as a pianist in the European free improvisation and free jazz scenes. Peter’s first novel, Far Inland, was published by Birlinn Polygon, Edinburgh, in 2006. His short stories and poetry have been widely anthologised and published in literary journals. In 2017, Peter turned to filmmaking. His first short documentary, ‘Manna – Jazz and Survival in East Harlem’, premiered at the African World Film Festival, Detroit, in 2019.
Poem: Comma of Didymus
Synopsis – “The comma is the cost, a thing cut off – not a loss, but what we want.” Comma of Didymus is an entrancing metaphorical journey fusing filmic imagery with extraordinary poetry and musicianship to create a compelling meditation on adjustment, loss, and reconciliation in times of change.
Director: Steve Smart (UK)
Steve Smart is a poet and filmmaker based near Dundee in Scotland. Steve says – “In making ‘Comma of Didymus’ I wanted to try to make a poetry film in a different way. I wanted to take some of the methods of poetry writing – like form, stanza, assonance, rhyme and rhythm, and find equivalents and ways to do these things using grammars of film. The result is a parallel but distinct audio-visual poem. There is a lot going on here – but I hope that in the end it all integrates to become a new and engaging kind of artwork.”
Poem: Kalan (The Remnant)
Synopsis – The Remnant, based on a poem written in the wake of the devastating earthquake that struck Türkiye in 2023, claiming the lives of approximately 60,000 people, pays tribute to resilience and the struggle for survival. Blending the ancient will of King Antiochus I of Commagene (69–34 BC), found on Mount Nemrut, which lies within the 2023 earthquake zone and has withstood hundreds of natural disasters to this day, with Anatolia’s deep-rooted healing traditions, the film offers a meditation on continuity amidst loss.
Director: Arda Gül (Türkiye)
Arda Gül is a photographer and videographer born in Izmir (Türkiye). He has been pursuing his passion for visual arts since he first picked up a camera in 1998. He graduated from the Izmir University of Economics, Department of Media and Communication in 2009. Currently, he provides professional services in product and event photography at his own photo studio. Additionally, he creates avant-garde works in creative fields, including music videos and art projects.
Poem: The Wall
Synopsis – “The Wall” is about the futility of small minds, exemplified by the patchwork wall being erected on the U.S. side of the Texas/Mexico border.
Directors: Pamela Falkenberg and Jack Cochran (USA)
Pam & Jack met in graduate school and made films together when they were young. Jack left to become a professional cinematographer working out of LA and London, while Pam went on to become a professor and experimental filmmaker. Now reunited, they try to live up to their name, Outlier Moving Pictures, by making technically innovative and poetic films about life, love, landscapes, social justice, and the environment. Jack earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop and has written poetry throughout his life, but never did anything with them, until he showed them to Pam, who said, “You’re a filmmaker — shouldn’t your poems be films?” Their film poems have been screened in many places around the world, which has led to interesting collaborations with other talented poets and filmmakers.
Poem: Single-use Plastic Bag
Synopsis – Abeer Ameer has been steadfastly chronicling the genocide in Gaza with her powerful poetry of witness since the beginning – somehow finding the words most of us cannot. In bringing this raw, tender poem to film, the filmmaker wanted simultaneously to bring to life the cry we hear so often: ‘What if it was your child?’
Director: Janet Lees (UK)
Janet Lees is a lens-based artist and poet. She has won the Ó Bhéal International Poetry Film Competition, Filmetry Festival, Best International Poetry Short at the Bloomsday Film Festival, and was one of the artists featured in the landmark exhibition Poets with a Video Camera: Videopoetry 1980–2020. Her art photography has featured in solo and group shows around the world, and her prize-winning poetry is widely published in journals and anthologies.
Poem: Drunk Daddy’s Girl
Synopsis – What does it mean to witness violence, and how can poetic language become a tool for healing? The film challenging us to confront the harsh realities hidden within familial bonds.
Director: Madara Gruntmane (Latvia)
Madara Gruntmane-Dujana (poet, artist, pianist) has participated in several poetry festivals in Europe such as Berlin Poetry festival, Poets in Transylvania, International Poetry Festival Transpoésie in Brussels, International Poetry Festival in Birmingham, London Book Fair, Cretes poetry festival, Istanbul poetry festival and others. She has also published three poetry collections Aizmīlestība (Afterlove. Riga: Neputns, 2022), Dzērājmeitiņa (Drunk Daddy’s Girl. Riga: Neputns, 2018) and Narkozes (Narcoses. Riga: Neputns, 2015). Her art works have been exhibited in Riga Art Space, Tallinn Art hall, Kommagene Bienal in Turkey and Video poetry festival in Athens.
Poem: Diving into the Wreck
Synopsis – In a monochrome dreamscape, the boundaries between human and nature dissolve as a woman drifts beneath the weight of memory and time—an evocative visual poem woven with fragility, resilience, and the quiet unraveling of self.
Director: Michael Maurissens (Germany)
Michael Maurissens is a Belgian choreographer, filmmaker, and cultural practitioner based in Germany. His practice merges movement and image to explore how the body holds, remembers, and transforms lived experience. Working at the intersection of choreography, filmmaking, and community, he creates projects through long-term collaboration with people whose lives are shaped by displacement, resilience, and ancestral knowledge. Maurissens treats the camera as a choreographic partner.
Poems: What is Home? / We Love What We Have
Synopsis – “Free Words: A Poet from Gaza” is a documentary-poetryfilm that explores the life and artistry of Mosab Abu Toha, a gifted poet whose voice resonates from the heart of Gaza. The film delves into Mosab’s journey as he navigates the complexities of living in oppression and occupation. Detained by the Israeli military, Mosab’s imprisonment sparked an outcry from the international literary community, highlighting the profound impact of his work and the power of poetry as a tool.
Director: Abdullah Harun Ilhan (Palestine)
Abdullah Harun İlhan was born in Malatya, Türkiye. His interest in visual arts began at an early age. This interest led him to shoot his first short film at the age of eleven. More than one hundred short films and documentaries he made were shown at international film festivals and were awarded several awards. Ilhan graduated from various universities and film schools from the USA, UK, Türkiye, South Korea and Qatar. He has contributed to film and photography projects in around 70 countries. He continues his work in Turkish, English and Arabic languages.
Poem: Peripatetic Salvaged Poetry for Inexorable Excoriations Brought on by Grief
Synopsis – Solitary walking becomes an essential therapeutic means of forgetting-and-remembering painful loss, mortality, and corporealized grief—revealing unexpectedly affecting poetry in traversed landscapes, an acutely inflamed body, ritualized medical care, and the uncanny manifestations of lensed observations.
Director: Anne Ciecko (USA)
Anne Ciecko is a maker, writer, and educator based in western Massachusetts, USA. Her poetry-films /videopoems and short experimental works have been screened at festivals worldwide.
Poems: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening & A Dream Deferred
Synopsis – American poets Langston Hughes and Robert Frost meet in a cave in the South of France and have words with each other. This mashup experimental FilmPoem takes two iconic poems and reimagines and transfigures them. The film starts with Frost and ends with Fire.
Director: Jim Hall (USA/France)
Jim Hall is a two-time Peabody award winner for his work as part of an investigative team in television. Hall had a long career as a producer/photojournalist/editor in TV News. Hall is the Executive Producer of Canary Canard Studios based in France. The Franco-American company produces international award winning short films first heard on the podcast Canary Canard.
Poem: Envy
Synopsis – Envy is a poetic meditation inspired by Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality. It casts envy as a hidden messenger of desire—able to awaken self-awareness or sink us into resentment and mob judgment. Through stark symbolism — hands greedily snatching fruit, a woman dragged from a ladder by her skirt, long hair severed — the film exposes envy’s robbing nature.
Director: Maryam Imogen Ghouth (Dubai/Spain)
Maryam Imogen Ghouth is a literary artist working across visual, audio, and written poetry and prose. Her films, such as Not Alone, have been screened and awarded at over 30 international festivals, among them Poetry in Motion, Zebra Poetry Film Festival, Emirates Film Festival, and Barcelona Indie Films. Her poems have appeared in journals such as inScribe, Sky Island, Last Leaves, Querencia Press, and others.
Poem: Japanese Cherry
Synopsis – A poem about a boy who finds his longing to be, in a Cherry Tree.
Director: Liz Crow (USA)
Elizabeth M. Burton-Crow, PhD has always felt most at home in wild landscapes and connecting across species. Her doctoral dissertation focused upon the influence of captivity upon the psyches of parrots and poultry. Today, Elizabeth’s work strives to integrate ethics, art, and science through her independently run media production and consulting company, The Nature Imaginarium. She is rooted in the Pacific Northwest, with extended animal family.
Poem: Cuando Fui Clandestino (When I Was Clandestine)
Synopsis – Juan Garrido Salgado immigrated to Australia from Chile in 1990, fleeing the regime that burned his poetry, imprisoned him, and tortured him for his political activism. “My verse is born by the nights of the curfew… Nobody suspected my international studies. Otherwise I would’ve been charcoal on the grill of the House of Torture of the Borgoño… When I was clandestine.”
Director: Ian Gibbins (Australia)
Ian Gibbins is a widely published and exhibited poet, video artist and electronic musician living in South Australia. His award-winning video poetry, video art and audio art have been exhibited to acclaim at festivals, installations, galleries and public art displays around the world. Until he retired in 2014, Ian was an internationally recognised neuroscientist and Professor of Anatomy at Flinders University, South Australia.
Poem: Panjereh (Window)
Synopsis – An experimental short film odyssey that illustrates, interprets and illuminates verses from “Panjereh” by the late, legendary Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad (read by Forough Saramolki).
Directors: Aida Daneshvar & Christopher Dreisbach (USA)
Aida Daneshvar was born in Tehran, primarily raised in Los Angeles and spent her early childhood in New York City. She’s a multidisciplinary artist with a BFA in Photography from the Academy of Art in San Francisco.
Christopher Dreisbach is a filmmaker, musician, and visual artist raised in Vermont. He received his MFA from the American Film Institute Conservatory.
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Sunday 2nd November @ 4.30pm |
Poem: Happy Day
Synopsis – HAPPY DAY is a film about meaninglessness and choosing to celebrate it through the lens of celebration culture — with cakes, festive decorations as protagonists — the story unfolds. It contemplates existence while documenting growth; it speaks of loss and possession; hides personal easter eggs, yet reveals identity…
Director: Boru Zheng (China)
Boru Zheng is an artistic creator from Hong Kong. Her film Happy Day won best experimental film at the Athens International Monthly Art Film Festival.
Poem: Danger Of Death
Synopsis – Daredevils in the water. Hesitation on the shore.
Director: Paul Bogaert (Belgium)
Paul Bogaert is a celebrated Belgian poet known for his sharp linguistic precision, surreal imagery, and exploration of modern life’s absurdities. Since his debut collection Welcome Hygiene (1996), Bogaert has published several acclaimed poetry books. Beyond the page, Bogaert is engaged in the world of poetry film. Collaborating with artists like Jan Peeters and Karsten Krause, he transforms his poems into cinematic experiences that have been featured at international festivals.
Poems: Do not go gentle into that good night; Invictus; No man is an island; Sonnet 29
Synopsis – Four significant poems were written by four authors. They were broken up into lines and hidden within hundreds of films, until they were found, collated and restored.
Director: Dmytro Bondarchuk (Ukraine)
Dmytro Bondarchuk is an experimental filmmaker from Ukraine whose main interest is recycling cinema. He is the creator of long-form collage films “The History of the Hands” (2016), “365 days, also known as a Year” (2018) and “The Boxing cinema” (2020).
Poem: Viola
Synopsis – A poetry film dedicated to Maksym “Dali” Kryvtsov — a Ukrainian soldier, junior sergeant of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, poet, photographer, public figure and volunteer, who was killed on January 7, 2024, during the Russo-Ukrainian war. The video features his last poem along with illustrations by Angie Siveria and music by Oskar Schuster.
Director: Angie Siveria (Germany / Ukraine)
Angie Siveria is a Ukrainian / German illustrator, director and poet. She has experience in various fields of art including book illustration, board and video games illustration, book trailers, music artwork and videos, videoart backdrops for theaters, poetry film animation etc. She has created poetry films based on her poems and poems by famous poets such as Serhiy Zhadan. Angie’s films have participated and won at international festivals such as Zebra, Cyclop, Vidkryta nich, Molodist, REELPoetry, Kinokimeriya, Ó Bhéal, Fotogenia, and others.
Poem: Nocturne for a Lighterman
Synopsis – In 1872, whilst living beside the river Thames in Chelsea, London, James Abbott McNeill Whistler produced the atmospheric, tonal painting Nocturne in Blue and Gold, Old Battersea Bridge. Sarah Tremlett’s ancestor George Baker was a lighterman (bargeman), living at the same time, close by, on the poor side of the river. It is possible the man in the picture could be George, and he could even have ferried Whistler to ideal sites for painting. This film is taken from TREE, a forthcoming family history chronicle by Sarah Tremlett.
Director: Sarah Tremlett (UK)
Sarah Tremlett is a prize-winning poetry film-maker, poet and theorist. She is a director and editor of Liberated Words online. She is a juror and curator at festivals (recently Maldito, Fotogenia, Women in Word & REELpoetry), and has given numerous talks, readings and screenings on the subject worldwide (e.g. Vancouver & San Francisco, 2022). Her publication The Poetics of Poetry Film (Intellect Books UK, 2021), has been described as “A ground – breaking, encyclopaedic work, and an industry Bible’ and is available in over 650 academic libraries worldwide.
Poem: Uisneach Midi (Part 2)
Synopsis – The Convention of Uisneach was said to take place at bealtaine and was known as one of the three great assemblies of Ireland. The Norman chronicler Giraldus Cambrensis referred to Uisneach as the ‘Umbilicus Hiberniae’ and it has been called the navel and centre of Ireland. A huge glacial erratic on that hill called Ail na Míreann (The Stone of Divisions) is said to be the place where the four provinces of Ireland meet. The film contains documentary footage from 2009 and 2010 when fires were lit on the hill. In 2009 the launch event of the ‘Festival of the Fires’ occurred. The following year a much larger event was hosted on the hill with a full day of music, a parade and the lighting of a bonfire at sunset.
Director: Brendan Duffin (Ireland)
Brendan Duffin is an artist and founding member of ‘MacBóchra’. Taking their name from the oldest seanchaí and shape shifter Fintan macBóchra, the project adapts seanchas and béaloideas into new bilingual music, poetry, visuals arts and theatre.
Poem: Aviary
Synopsis – Aviary reimagines how extinct birds might be resurrected to save humanity. Magical realism, nature journaling and the alchemy of the artist, are collaged and synergized, in this short poetry feature.
Director: Mary Russell (USA)
Mary Russell is a Chicago based artist. She has a long-standing collaboration with poet Gerard Wozek on videopoems which have screened at numerous conferences in the United States and at festivals abroad, including the Sadho Poetry Film Festival in New Delhi, India, the Zebra Poetry Video Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, and the Athens Video Poetry Festival in Greece. Along with Wozek, she has co-facilitated workshops on the evolving genre of poetry video as well on the art of nature journaling.
Poem: Rosa
Synopsis – “Rosa” is centred on the maternal figure of Rosa Sánchez. The visuals and poetic narration invite us into her world and the past that has shaped her present.
Director: Jannik Ohlendieck (Mexico / Ireland)
Jannik Ohlendieck has written numerous short films over the years. His most noteworthy project is “The Crooked Path”, which he also directed and produced. In 2019, he acted, wrote, directed, produced and edited the short film “Down The Barrel”, which was screened at the Dublin University Film Festival. His upcoming feature film script “The Black Sheep” won the Best Feature Prize at the BlueCat Screenplay Competition 2023 and is currently in development.
Poem: Parallaxed
Synopsis – Parallaxed considers the nature of memory and how we order it. In part informed by the experiences of those living with mental illness, it also reflects, in a wider sense, the very nature of what it is to re-order and re-form recall. The piece looks at how narratives are made from our lives, as it literally re-frames reality into another story.
Director: Neil Armstrong (UK)
Neil Armstrong is artist living in Northumberland, UK. He has been making what was termed ‘video art’ since the mid 70s, initially alongside performance work, and his video art work has been shown around the world – notably at the ICA, Tate Gallery and Air Gallery in London, Royal College and Slade, and internationally including in De Appel, Amsterdam. His one man shows have been held at the DLI Gallery in Durham, Hartlepool Gallery and the Toffee Factory in Newcastle upon Tyne. His recent video verse ‘The Tipping Point’ (2023) was shown in a bunker in Kazakhstan, which was somewhat appropriate given its dystopian content.
Poem: Yes to joy
Synopsis – Should we push ourselves into a box, or shall we dare to be wrong? In a world that rewards perfection, failure might be the most radical act. YES! invites to rethink success, conformity, and the quiet cost of always striving.
Director: Madli Lääne (Estonia)
Madli Lääne is an Estonian filmmaker. YES! is her first poetry film. Madli holds an MFA in Film and Media Production from the University of Texas at Austin. She studied editing at the ifs internationale filmschule Köln and she also works as an independent editor. Lääne is currently a film lecturer at the Baltic Film and Media School of Tallinn University.
Poem: Crossing Over Barrack Street
Synopsis – Part poetry-film, part documentary, “Crossing Over Barrack Street” paints a portrait of dereliction in Cork City and highlights the work of campaigners Jude Sherry and Frank O’Connor who address urban neglect and advocate for sustainable regeneration.
Director: Philip Denvir (Ireland)
Philip Denvir is an emerging documentary filmmaker based in Northern Ireland, transitioning to filmmaking after more than 18 years in the art and design world. His work has been honoured with a Royal Television Society Student Television Award in the “National Postgraduate Factual – Short Form” category and “TV Production of the Year” at the National Student Media Awards. His creative process is informed by a deep appreciation for visual storytelling and a desire to explore the intersections of place, memory, and identity. Working as a self-shooting producer-director and editor, he brings a strong editorial focus, aiming to surface overlooked narratives and amplify voices too often unheard.
Poem: Midnight, the Zero Hour
Synopsis – In the farcical exchange between the poet and the harmonic pipe, you will silently count from zero to nine, then see fragments of highly treasured visual relics the poet has gleaned in her travels.
Director: Ye Mimi (Taiwan)
Ye Mimi is a Taiwanese poet, filmmaker and “Poetry Tarot” spiritual counselor who studied film at the Chicago Art Institute’s MFA Program in Film, Video and New Media. Her most recent book publication is WuWuWu, a two-volume box set of poems and essays she has written on shamanic rituals and funerals she witnessed and filmed in China and Indonesia. Her most recent books are Poetry Tarot and Shamans: Poems and Essays, both 2023.
Poem: We did not know
Synopsis – Based on a true story – In search of new habitats, house crows, native to India, move as stowaways on large cargo ships. This is how a pair arrived by ship in Hoek of Holland near the harbour of Rotterdam about thirty years ago. They multiplied into a colony of twenty-five crows. The house crows were welcome guests of residents and tourists. They lived there happily for 30 years. Until, in 2012, the Team Invasive Exotics, a division of the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority, decided to exterminate the crows.
Director: Guido van Driel (The Netherlands)
Guido van Driel is a self-taught Illustrator, painter, graphic novelist and film director. Pourakamika was preceded by the short ‘Nachtbloeiers/ Night Time Blooms’ (2022). Both were inspired by the poems of Annelie David.
Poem: Pharmacy Museum Tour, New Orleans
Synopsis – The film is the enactment of a poem about the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum, the oldest licensed pharmacy in the U.S. It is set in the museum itself and the actor is an actual guide at the museum and was the inspiration for the poem by Andy Young.
Directors: Andy Young & Simsim Hegazzi (USA)
Andy Young’s second full-length collection Museum of the Soon to Depart, was released in October by Carnegie Mellon University Press. She is also the author of All Night It Is Morning (Diálogos Press, 2014) and four chapbooks. She grew up in southern West Virginia and has lived most of her adult life in New Orleans, where she teaches at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. Her work has recently appeared in The Greensboro Review, Drunken Boat, and Michigan Quarterly Review.
Poem: Feral
Synopsis – An empathetic look at a friend suffering from addiction. The film uses Victorian archive images, projection, architecture and original animations.
Director: Stephen Patrick Murphy (Ireland)
Stephen Patrick Murphy has worked in the film industry for over ten years in both Ireland and Canada. He began directing no budget short films in 2013 with a focus on tackling serious issues with an entertaining and comedic approach. His directing approach is character-driven, with a focus on shooting “guerilla” style, in unpredictable public spaces. Stephen was a finalist in the 2020 Galway Film Fleadh pitching contest and participated in the Stowe Story Lab with his feature film idea “A Second Coming” in 2024.
