EXTENDED DEADLINE! Beijing-based entries can now enter their submissions by 8pm February 27.
A literary film competition
Electric Shadows and Time Out Beijing present May Your Pen Grace the Screen, a short film competition in conjunction with the 2012 Bookworm International Literary Festival (BLF).
Using Australian Slam Poet Luka Lesson’s poem May Your Pen Grace the Page as a starting point, applicants are invited to create films up to ten minutes in length and submit them for a chance to be a part of a film screening event at the BLF and win a prize.
The films will be judged by a panel comprising Electric Shadows director, Vicky Mohieddeen,
Time Out film editor, Wang Ge and BLF director Kadi Hughes. Shortlisted films will be screened during BLF as part of a special event, preceded by a live performance of
May Your Pen Grace the Page by Luka Lesson. The winning film will receive the following prizes:
1st prize
A filmmaking package from Caoker comprising either 4,000RMB cash budget (funds will be given on presentation of receipts from the recipient) or two camera operators and an editor for any kind of short film (shoot schedule depends on the crew's availability), which must be shot and completed before January 1 2013 (no restrictions on contest except pornography or extrememly objectionable subject matter).
The film will be featured exclusively on Caoker for 2 weeks, then can be freely uploaded to other video websites, with a production credit to Caoker.
PLUS one year's membership to Beijing's only arthouse cinema, Broadway Cinematheque MOMA (with benefits including priority booking, discounts on tickets and purchases at Kubrick cafe and bookstore).
2nd PrizeA 2,500RMB rental credit with Sim Video - can be used for any equipment or services within three months of prize being announced.
PLUS one year's membership to Beijing's only arthouse cinema, Broadway Cinematheque MOMA (with benefits including priority booking, discounts on tickets and purchases at Kubrick cafe and bookstore).
3rd PrizeA LomoKino movie camera worth
638RMB and a month's life drawing classes at The Hutong worth 240RMB.
Submissions will be previewed by all three judges no later than February 27.
May Your Pen Grace the Page
May your pen grace the page at the same pace as your brain
May your grey matter from now on no longer be grey
May you mean every word that you say
And may writing your rhymes be the way that you pray
Get up, Step up, never let up
Get your setup set up
Get recording, get stories pouring
Ignoring your calling and calling you ‘boring’ is boring
You need to be touring
What are you doing? You’re basically stewing
No space for day dreaming
No place for that feeling
No place for pacing the building or facing the ceiling
There’s no way that it is dealing
Your brain it is stealing
And there’ll be no change to you
And there’ll never be any change to that ceiling
I’m basically feeling that art isn’t hard
What’s hard is your heart
And it starts in the past, but the past’s in the past
So love who you are
Pass a rush of blood until your arteries blast
And let the blood rush to your arm and let your artistry start
May your pen express upon the page every feeling you’re in
May your white page – Yang
Love your black pen – Yin
May the ball in your ball point roll ‘cause that’s the point of the ball
And if we can’t make our points then what’s the point of it all?
May the lead in your lead-pencil lead you astray
We spell it L-E-A-D ‘cause we’ve made leaders this way
I know it’s hard but easy to say but I mean what I say when I say
'Mean what you say'
Potentially my pencil be the deftest thing you’ve ever seen
Adept at expressing everything that you’ve never seen
Especially when you question me
My pencil, man she gets to me
She comes to me and comforts me and takes me out to lunch you see
We have a cup of coffee, before I know it she’s on top of me
She rocking and she’s rolling me
We’re touching uncontrollably
She likes to switch the roles on me
I think I writing with her
But she it writing with me
Its my life as I desire to be
It’s only right that she’s my wife 2B
She takes me to her bed of white
We try it in the dead of night
Pages till we get it right
We make love between the sheets
May your pen grace the page at the same pace as your brain
May your grey matter from now on no longer be grey
May you mean every word that you say
And may writing our rhymes be the way that we pray
Poet
Luka Lesson
Luka Lesson is the current Australian Poetry Slam Champion and Co-director of The Centre for Poetics and Justice, and was once described 'a young Saul Williams' by UK performance poet Charlie Dark. Luka has been active in community development work utilising hip-hop and poetry as a form of self-determination and raising awareness for marginalised young people for many years. He has taught Indigenous Studies at Monash University for the past two years and holds a first class honours degree in the same field. Luka has performed his work beside the likes of Shane Koyczan (Canada), Amir Sulaiman (USA), Lowkey (UK) and Lemon Anderson (USA), and was invited to perform a full feature at the famous Nuyorican Poet's Cafe in New York City in 2011. Still only at the beginning of his career Luka's roof raising performances and expert writing has built him a reputation that already spans the globe both as a poet and conscious hip-hop artist. His first full length Book and Album 'Please Resist Me' is available now through Australian Scholarly Publishing.
www.lukalesson.com.
Keep it simple - a well executed simple story will go down better than an over complicated effort we can’t follow.
Be creative - we’re looking for strong ideas not technical excellence.
Don’t do everything yourself - a strong team with complementary skills will do better than one overstretched auteur.
Don’t over think the brief - read the poem, watch the video and get filming!
Have fun! Filmmaking is about telling stories, communicating ideas and enjoying the process
Vicky Mohieddeen
Vicky Mohieddeen is a filmmaker and curator based in Beijing. She is the founder and artistic director of Electric Shadows, a non profit organisation helping to shape the evolution of public cinema in China by programming beautiful film events including a monthly short film showcase. Vicky is currently working with Koryo Tours on a documentary about the first Western-North Korean feature film collaboration.
Wang Ge
Wang Ge is the associate editor (film/music) of
Time Out Beijing, with a specialty in contemporary Chinese independent cinema and the city’s live music scene. Between 2004-2007, he studied BA Media & Communications (film fiction and print journalism) at Goldsmiths College in London, and has been working in Beijing since 2007 as a freelance scriptwriter (in Chinese), the music editor of the
Beijinger magazine, and the film/performance art correspondent at ARTINFO China website.
Kadi Hughes
Kadi Hughes is the director of The Bookworm International Literary Festival and events director for year-long programming at The Bookworm Beijing. Previously, she was a principle consultant at Brooklyn-based design and events firm Operation:CMYK, a senior interactive designer at Draft FCB New York as well as editorial assistant at Conde Nast.
- Any genre of film will be considered (narrative, documentary, experimental, music video etc).
- Films should be ten minutes or less.
- Films must be submitted on DVD PAL or Quicktime format.
- Films originating in a language other than English must have English subtitles.
- Short films that are submitted must be the entrant’s original work.
Contestants agree that they have obtained all required permissions regarding music, sound and/or images presented in the film.
- To be considered for competition, films must be delivered on DVD to The Bookworm Cafe, Beijing.
EXTENDED DEADLINE! Beijing-based entries can now enter their submissions by 8pm February 27.- Films from outside China are to be submitted by uploading to Vimeo or Youtube (please note that films submitted from outside China are
not eligible for the prizes and are only to be included in the screening). Please apply to
electricshadows.bj@gmail.com.