Great Poets: In Their Own Words

Portrait of the writer Elsa Triolet, wife of poet Louis Aragon. The tile is a play on a famous poem by Louis Les yeux d'Elsa.

A fictionalized account of famous French writer Émile Zola and his involvement in the Dreyfus Affair. After struggling to establish himself, Zola wins success documenting the unsavory side of Paris and settles into a comfortable upper-class life. However, his complacency is shaken when Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus is imprisoned for espionage. Realizing that Dreyfus is an innocent victim of anti-Semitism, Zola boldly pens an exposé, only to be charged with libel and now he must defend himself in a dramatic courtroom testimony.

The story of how Everett Leroy Jones became Amiri Baraka, from his childhood to the mid '60s, is told through interviews recorded in the late '90s.

Fraňo Kráľ

A fourteen-minute documentary splitted in two parts where we can see Anne Sexton at her home reading, talking about poetry and about her family.

The writer's room during the production of the fifth season of Community struggles with time while the show is being filmed. This behind the scenes documentary depicts the writing of episodes 10, 12, and 13; "Advanced Advanced Dungeons & Dragons," "Basic Story," and "Basic Sandwich."

A lost chapter in black British film: extraordinary rushes from a documentary showcasing talented members of the black community.

A documentary recreating the life and writings of celebrated Irish author James Joyce with readings from his most famous works filmed on location in Dublin and Paris and hosted by Peter O'Toole.

In this short documentary, Canadian poet Andrew Suknaski introduces us to Wood Mountain, the south central Saskatchewan village he calls home. In between musings on his poetry, which is tinged with nostalgia and the vast loneliness of the plains, the poet discusses the area’s multicultural background and Native heritage, as well as the customs and stories of these various ethnic groups.

Poet, singer / songwriter and ladies man Leonard Cohen is interviewed in his home about his life and times. The interview is interspersed with archive photos and exuberant praise and live perfomances from an eclectic mix of musicians, including: Jarvis Cocker, Rufus & Martha Wainwright, Teddy Thompson, ANOHNI, The Handsome Family and U2's Bono and The Edge.

Reading out loud one poem of Andrés Eloy Blanco, titled “Pleito de amar y querer” (Battle between loving and caring).

Video-essay about poet Ana Enriqueta Terán.

A short documentary about the rapidly disappearing era of heritage movie palaces and the film going experience once offered within those hallowed walls.

De la rivière à la mer

Explore Emily Dickinson's vivacious, irreverent side that was covered up for years — most notably her lifelong romantic relationship with another woman.

Jean Sénac, born in Béni Saf in Algeria in 1926 and died in Algiers in 1973, is today considered one of the great French writers and poets and the only one of his reputation to have accompanied the Algerian revolution before November 1954. part of all the debates and got involved, very early and with immense enthusiasm, in a work of commitment which ended badly. His poetry, his sexual preferences and his political lyricism work against him: rejected as much by the Pieds Noirs as by the FLN activists then by the power in place in Algiers, Jean Sénac was assassinated in 1973 at his home in Algiers, in circumstances never clarified.

In his exploration of the cultural dynamic between East and West, Adolf Muschg, the most significant Swiss writer since Frisch and Dürrenmatt, searched for the other in himself in order to understand otherness.

Short documentary on Chilean poet Jorge Teillier (1935-1996), who comes back to Lautaro, on the south of Chile, the place where he was born.

By ending the life of Jean Senac on August 30, 1973 in Algiers, his assassins believed they would silence him forever. They were wrong since his voice is a little louder every day. Witnesses to these craze: the publication of the complete works of this great poet, the countless conferences and radio broadcasts devoted to him and finally the production of films such as "Jean Sénac, the blacksmith of the sun". The moving and overwhelming testimonies of those who knew him, the unpublished film archives, the generous voice of the poet on the radio, the discovery of his travels in the territories of poetry and politics make this film a precious document on the life of Jean Senac.

Documentary on the life of the great Romanian-Jewish poet Paul Celan. Tormented by the experiences of the Holocaust, he committed suicide in Paris in 1970 in the Seine. For the first time, the poet's son, Eric Celan, speaks in front of the camera about his father and the difficult life of the family.