Eoghan is a sound-recordist who is returning to Ireland from Berlin for the first time in 15 years. His reason for returning is a job offer: to find and record places free from man-made sound. His quest takes him away from towns and villages into remote terrain. Throughout his journey, he is drawn into a series of encounters and conversations which gradually divert his attention towards a more intangible silence, one that is bound up with the sounds of the life he had left behind. Influenced by elements of folklore and archive, “Silence” unfolds with a quiet intensity, where poetic images reveal an absorbing meditation on themes relating to sound and silence, history, memory and exile.

‘Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp’, examines the tumultuous life of legendary Chicago pimp Iceberg Slim (1918-1992) and how he reinvented himself from pimp to author of 7 groundbreaking books. These books were the birth of Street Lit and explored the world of the ghetto in gritty and poetic detail and have made him a cultural icon. Interviews with Iceberg Slim, Chris Rock, Henry Rollins, Ice-T, Snoop Dogg, and Quincy Jones.

Shaken by a divorce in the 1920s, Portuguese poetess Florbela Espanca uses her writing to deal with her tumultuous relationship with men, eroticism and love.

A young writer tries to obtain romance letters a poet sent to his mistress.

A chronicle of the iconoclastic life of gay poet, filmmaker, and spiritual visionary James Broughton, one of the defining voices of the sexual revolution, whose groundbreaking artistic celebrations of sexuality and the body influenced generations of the 1960’s and 70’s to profoundly embrace life and ‘follow your own weird’.

Marlon Riggs, with assistance from other gay Black men, especially poet Essex Hemphill, celebrates Black men loving Black men as a revolutionary act. The film intercuts footage of Hemphill reciting his poetry, Riggs telling the story of his growing up, scenes of men in social intercourse and dance, and various comic riffs, including a visit to the “Institute of Snap!thology,” where men take lessons in how to snap their fingers: the sling snap, the point snap, the diva snap.

Kim lives with his dad, sells weed to skaters, writes poetry, and snorts painkillers to get through the day. One evening, while strolling through the subdivision painted up as his alter ego Shadow Zombie, Kim catches the eye of a registered nurse and part-time clown Brandi. What follows is a brief romance marked by destruction by the very real phantoms emanating from Kim’s dead-end present and Brandi’s traumatic past. Shooting under near-documentary conditions in and around Lafayette, Louisiana, Jorge Torres-Torres operates peopling his film with a coterie of genuine Acadiana misfits. The merciless and at times unexpectedly poignant observation of Kim’s world dares to see through to the human core of a drug addict or clinically depressed clown.

A time to remember and celebrate the founders of this great group of troubadours, who started it all back in 1962: Ronnie Drew, Luke Kelly, Ciarán Bourke and Barney McKenna. These were the originals who lit the flame 50 years ago, and set fire to the world of folk music. For the filming of this DVD, hundreds of old photographs were assembled; audio and video clips were retrieved from the archives to capture the spirit of the group down through the decades. Projected performances from the past played an integral role in this celebration concert. The atmosphere was electric, with music, stories and poetry flowing from reservoirs of memory — a unique collaboration between the original group and the current line-up, a perfect party to celebrate 50 years.

One of the most enigmatic artists of the 20th century, writer, composer and wanderer Paul Bowles (1910-1999) is profiled by a filmmaker who has been obsessed with his genius since age nineteen. Set against the dramatic landscape of North Africa, the mystery of Bowles (famed author of The Sheltering Sky) begins to unravel in Jennifer Baichwal’s poetic and moving Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles. Rare, candid interviews with the reclusive Bowles–at home in Tangier, as well as in New York during an extraordinary final reunion with Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs–are intercut with conflicting views of his supporters and detractors. At the time in his mid-eighties, Bowles speaks with unprecedented candor about his work, his controversial private life and his relationships with Gertrude Stein, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, the Beats, and his wife and fellow author Jane Bowles.

A merciless hit man rescues a prostitute from a violent incident in a Philippine slum before the two take flight. Though Khavn, a standard-bearer of the digital age in the Philippines, has already established himself as a director of countless films, he is also an accomplished poet and musician. The bewildering visuals and punk-opera soundtrack expertly convey a world that extends far beyond the dialogue. As the story unfolds, a poetic sentiment wafts out of the chaos, signaling a collision of the director’s many talents.

An aspiring poet in a troubled marriage sparks with a new man who helps her find her artistic voice.

Recovering from an ill-fated affair with a married man, Gabe finds solace in the relationship he maintains with his ex-wife and daughter. On the other side of town, Ernesto evades life at home with his current live-in ex-boyfriend by spending much of his spare time in the hospital with an ailing past love. Impervious to the monotony of their blue-collar world, they maintain an unwavering yearning for romance. The emotional isolation the two men have grown accustomed to is captured in a subtle, optimistic, poetic fashion while avoiding melodrama.

“Made entirely of Scottish film archive, a journey into our collective past, the film explores universal themes of love, loss, resistance, migration, work and play. Ordinary people, some long since dead, their names and identities largely forgotten, appear shimmering from the depth of the vaults to take a starring role. Brilliantly edited together, these silent individuals become composite characters, who emerge to tell us their stories, given voice by King Creosote’s poetic music and lyrics.” BBC Four website

Drama – – Leonardo Black, June Buckner, Poetess Hunni Bunn

José Ferrer won the Oscar for Best Actor for his portayal of the swordsman-poet using his silver tongue to woo the woman he loves for another man. Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. Although there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, the play is a fictionalization of his life that follows the broad outlines of it. The entire play is written in verse, in rhyming couplets of twelve syllables per line, very close to the Alexandrine format, but the verses sometimes lack a caesura. It is also meticulously researched, down to the names of the members of the Académie française and the dames précieuses glimpsed before the performance in the first scene. The play has been translated and performed many times, and is responsible for introducing the word “panache” into the English language.

Grandmother Mi Ja works part-time as a caretaker, and struggles to raise a teen grandson by herself. Despite her tough situation, she speaks softly, dresses fashionably, and approaches the world with child-like curiosity. Enrolling in a poetry class, she endeavors to capture life in verse form, but her simple dream of completing a poem is stalled by the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease and the heavy financial and emotional burden of her grandson’s shocking wrongdoing.

A film poem inspired by the Peruvian poet César Vallejo. A story about our need for love, our confusion, greatness and smallness and, most of all, our vulnerability. It is a story with many characters, among them a father and his mistress, his youngest son and his girlfriend. It is a film about big lies, abandonment and the eternal longing for companionship and confirmation.

A married poet meets a teenage boy working at a donut shop and helplessly develops feelings for him.

Ashes and Snow, a film by Gregory Colbert, uses both still and movie cameras to explore extraordinary interactions between humans and animals. The 60-minute feature is a poetic narrative rather than a documentary. It aims to lift the natural and artificial barriers between humans and other species, dissolving the distance that exists between them.

A film with no spoken dialogue, just follows the music and lyrics of Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem, which include WWI soldier poet Wilfred Owen’s poems reflecting the war’s horrors. It shows the story of an Englishman soldier (Wilfred Owen) and a nurse (his bride) during World War I. It also includes actual footage of contemporary wars (WWII, Vietnam, Angola, etc.)

What if life blindsided destiny? What if happiness was found in the unlikeliest of places? When do we allow ourselves to embrace the new without fear of letting go of the past? Gil is a twenty year old young man that questions himself and the world. He is an orphan, raised by his aunt Leila and his uncle César. His lifestyle is fulfilled by his guitar, poetry and alcohol, generating a family war that causes Gil to run away from home causing him to leave behind all his belongings, security and the only love that he had till then, the love of his aunt Leila. With his guitar on his back, without a destiny, money or the support of friends, Gil meets Otávio, a music producer that will change his destiny forever.

Set in 19th-century Russia, Allen is a cowardly serf drafted into the Napoleonic war, who would rather write poetry and obsess over his beautiful but pretentious cousin. Allen’s cowardice serves him well when he hides in a cannon and is shot into a tent of French soldiers, making him a national hero. A hilarious parody of Russian literature, Love and Death is a must-see for fans of Allen’s films.