This film won Third Prize in the 2019 Atticus Review Videopoem Contest.

Poem by Dom Bury

Notes from Marc Neys, 2019 Videopoem Contest Judge:

What a delight to watch this video. The musical approach to the poem. The playfulness with which details are handled contrasts nicely with the seriousness that the boys radiate — all while still maintaining that dark undertone (I felt echoes of The Lord of the Flies)

A good variation in camera angle ensures that this piece never becomes repetitive. The soundscape holds everything together and provides the right rhythmic accents and underlines the dark undertone.

About the Filmmaker:

Helmie Stil is a Dutch award-winning filmmaker living and working in the UK. After graduating at the Utrecht School of Arts she has been researching, directing and producing her own films since 2006. She loves making poetic documentaries and film poems.

Her award winning documentaries and film poems have been shown on national television and international film festivals. Her film The Desktop Metaphor won the Weimar Poetry Film Award 2018. Her film poem “The Opened Field” won the Cadence Video Poetry Festival 2019 Award, the Reelpoetry Houston award and was selected for many international festivals and shortlisted for the prestigious OutSpoken Prize for Poetry 2019.

Her latest film poem ‘Muirburn’ was selected for Fotogenia. Helmie produced the film ‘Do not indulge indigo’ made by visual artist James W Norton and premiered during National Poetry Day 2019.

She is the director and founder of poetrycinema – films inspired by poetry.