The 2026 Film and Video Poetry Symposium

Innovative single or multi-channel works that engage poetry, text, and linguistic exploration through video, sound, performance, data-driven systems, and sculptural installation.

• Deadline — $25

Documentary is a nonfiction film or video work intended to constitute itself as a record of evidence about the past. The form is primarily used for archival records, instruction, education, advocacy, and journalism. The Film and Video Poetry Symposium will consider documentaries that contain or are focused on poets, poems, poetry, poetic technique, literary movements, and historical events within these realms.

• Deadline — $25

Works completed digitally or on film in this category fuse spoken poetry and/or text with visual imagery; such as performance or graphics, and sound. This integration, in which elements may function both independently and interdependently, creates a heightened presentation and interpretation of meaning. (Also known as video poetry, video-visual poetry, poetry film, poetry video, media poetry, or Cin(E)-Poetry.)

• Deadline — $25

Operating outside the boundaries of occupied cinema, the field of experimental film, experimental cinema, (we include the avant-garde) are modes of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explore non-narrative forms and alternatives to mainstream narratives or methods of filmmaking. These works may be boundary-pushing, personal, hermeneutic, political, and may operate wholly independently of poetry.

• Deadline — $25

An essay film ("cinematic essay" or "personal essay film") consists of the evolution of a theme or an idea rather than a plot, or the film literally being a cinematic accompaniment to a narrator reading an essay. From another perspective, an essay film could be defined as a documentary film visual basis combined with a form of commentary that contains elements of an experience or a self-portrait (rather than autobiography), where the signature (rather than the life story) of the filmmaker is apparent.

• Deadline — $25

Animations created through photographing successive images, drawings and/or positions of puppets, materials, items, or models in order to create an illusion of movement when shown in sequence. This includes stop motion. The Film and Video Poetry Symposium will consider animated work that contains, focused on, or driven by poets, poems, poetry, poetic technique, literary movements, and historical events.

• Deadline — $25

A choreopoem is a form of dramatic expression comprised of choreography, dance, poetry, performative writing, music, song, art, and acting. These works are chiefly achieved by ensembles and are based in stage craft though can also be accomplished as a one person show or created solely as a film or video.

• Deadline — $25

A film or video that is developed about, of, on, or from personal, public, and/or historic correspondences. Written, typed or printed communication such as letters, telegrams, diary and/or journal entries, blogs, emails, logbooks, travelogues, text messages, social media posts and/or timelines, records of conversations, and video mail art.

• Deadline — $25

Films or videos that focus upon and/or fuse together a historically important public address and/or a newly written speech with visual imagery (both may be independent and interdependent), to create a stronger presentation or interpretation of the meanings conveyed within the speech. This category also may include manifestos, monologues, inspirational talks, keynote speeches, opening and closing arguments, direct to camera presentations, poetry readings or recitals, spoken word performance, and public announcements.

• Deadline — $25

Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by an artist, a group of artists, and/or with participants. These projects may be live or within a staged reality, captured through documentation, written for camera, or presented to a public in a fine arts context.

• Deadline — $25

Projects driven by or focused upon poetry, poets, poems, poetic technique, and historical events within these realms. Episodic content must be interrelated, presented as narratively or topically connected, whether through documentation, traditional storytelling, or experimental forms. There are no restrictions regarding series length.

• Deadline — $25

These works include artificial Intelligence, computer animation (such as CGI or 3D animation), virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed or crossed reality, 360° video, algorithmic, websites, esoteric programming language, and telepresence projects created for a variety of apparatus, live performances, custom digital platforms, gaming software, experiences, interaction, or any combination of those elements that strongly incorporate the use of poetry, words, text, symbol, and language both visually and/or audibly.

• Deadline — $25

Film, video, or time-based media created primarily as an artistic expression rather than conventional narrative cinema (arthouse). These works often explore visual, temporal, and conceptual possibilities of the moving image, experimenting with form, perception, and sensory experience. This catagory takes a creative approach to engage audiences through innovation, time, critical inquiry, and artistic intent. These works may operate within the realm of poetry or wholly independently of it.

• Deadline — $25

This category explores the songwriter and/or lyricist as poet. Film and video submissions representing all songwriting traditions and genres are welcome: from folk lyricists to classical vocalists. We encourage submissions from Hip Hop artists, solo or group performance, a cappella or with accompaniment, whether presented as a music video, historical document, or performed to camera directly or creatively. Works should emphasize lyricism and the human voice, exploring how language, words, music, gesture, vocalism, and imagery come together to create a unified poetic experience.

• Deadline — $25

Works that frame, document, or creatively engage writings regarded as sacred or holy to religious or spiritual traditions. Drawn from memory or read directly, presented literally, imaginatively, and may include recitations, prayers, blessings, sermons, invocations, ritual or apotropaic language, imprecations, chants, spells, hymns, mantras, or scripture. Texts may originate from or reflect upon any religious or spiritual tradition the reader or filmmaker finds significant, whether personal, political, cultural, or esoteric.

• Deadline — $25