A fantastic night on Tuesday 8th July, in the cinema at the CCA.
Alastair Cook treated a rapt audience to a pick’n’mix selection of film poems from around the world, and in a range of languages. The non-English language selection demonstrated that it’s not always essential to understand the language in which a poem is written, in order to take something away from the audio-visual impact of the overall piece. Alastair featured film poems in Arabic, Gaelic, Catalan, and Dutch, as well as offering good spattering of English language works.
In between threads of films, sometimes he showed three or four back to back; Alastair gave a short review of the process of filmmaking in this genre and the importance of synergy between poet, film-maker, and composer/audio overlays.
All in all – a great night, a great audience. If you missed the event but want to know more about this genre , and Alastair in particular, you can check his website or, even better, catch him at the SouthBank in London where huge screens will loop his work continuously for three days, starting on July 18th.
