Death is Smoking My Cigars

Poems by some of the greatest writers of all time are brought to life through lyrical animation and readings by some of today’s most respected performers.

Ego Sum Petrus

A spring night is a poetic film which is based on the motives of the poem by V. Lugovsky. The film is devoted to the theme of fidelity to the battle traditions of revolutionary past, to the theme of human happiness the sense of it in the battle for high ideals.

Six poems written by six young prisoners animated to tell their stories, thoughts, fears and hopes.

Rubén tries to describe the color blue as "The color of dreams, of art, of the ocean and of the firmament", thereby unleashing half a century of poetry.

Loose impressionistic brushstrokes sketch a series of portraits of two faces, one male and one female, while the verse on the soundtrack tells the tale of both one and a thousand relationships.

Five different exploits of Sinbad the sailor where he gets mixed up with the pretty daughters of exotic potentates, with powerful monsters that threaten his existence, and with all sorts of teeming jungle life.

Giovanni currently lives a dreary life of near non-stop work. At school, his peers ridicule him incessantly, and his employer at work is distant and cold. As his isolation from society becomes unbearable, he suddenly finds himself on a train heading far away from his miserable home. Accompanied by Campanella, an acquaintance from school, Giovanni embarks on a journey that will define the rest of his life.

La vita nuova

Un spectacle interrompu

This film visualizes humanity’s quest to relentlessly pursue goals. In the human fight for progress, the march forward cannot be stopped, even when individual people become weary and die. This animated short is based on a poem by the Chilean filmmaker and poet Juan Forch. Chilean painter Hernando León created the design.

Based on the novel ‘Wilted Flower’ by Nou Hach, the film unfolds a gripping tale of grief and desperate hope. When Noun, the mother, breaks off her daughter's engagement to a struggling suitor in favor of a wealthier match, tragedy ensues. As her daughter's heartbreak consumes her, illness tightens its grip, pushing Noun to turn to ancient rituals for salvation.

Inside the closet at seamstress Jacira's house, in an old orange coat, lives Teca, a curious little bookworm, and her pet mite, Tuti. When the old seamstress mistakenly takes Teca and Tuti in her coat while returning a book to the city library, Tuti, once again, had caused some trouble. Escaping with Teca's ribbon in its mouth, it disappears through the mazes of the library, setting up a grand adventure. In addition to stop-motion, the short film "A Library Tale" features other animation techniques such as digital 3D and 2D, several scenes in live action with real settings and characters.

Réne Manzor's debut short, a surreal story about a tramp trying to build a road through the desert.

A pastel animation produced by Sheila Graber and based upon the short story by Sid Chaplin. Narrated by north east broadcaster Mike Neville the film tells the story of Geordie, a miner, and his love for his pigeons and the trials and tribulations of his passion which is very popular around the region. The face of Sid Chaplin is used as Geordie.

Rosie Ming, a young Canadian poet, is invited to perform at a Poetry Festival in Shiraz, Iran, but she’d rather be in Paris. She lives at home with her over-protective Chinese grandparents and has never been anywhere by herself. Once in Iran, she finds herself in the company of poets and Persians, all who tell her stories that force her to confront her past; the Iranian father she assumed abandoned her and the nature of Poetry itself. It’s about building bridges between cultural and generational divides. It’s about being curious. Staying open. And finding your own voice through the magic of poetry. Rosie goes on an unwitting journey of forgiveness, reconciliation, and perhaps above all, understanding, through learning about her father’s past, her own cultural identity, and her responsibility to it.

A film-poem created for Counterclock Journal's 2023 Patchwork: Film x Poetry fellowship, featuring an original poem by Mackenzie Duan and animation by Evan Bode.

A young man opens the window of his attic room and discovers a lunar landscape which submerges him and threatens to imprison him in an eternal sheet of ice. He closes the window to escape this vision and hears from deep inside his soul the sound of a poem being sung.

相思（上）

The third film of the biographical cycle based on Pushkin's drawings and texts.