The 6th International Video Poetry Festival was a really successful festival of poetry, visual art, performances and installations. More than 1000 people attended the 2 days festival. 130 video poems projected at the main theatrical stage of the Free Self- Organised Theater Empros. Various video poems with different styles and atmospheres from all over the world. All the pieces of art which were presented at the festival was important and astonishing. Some of them were standing out and the warm audience was applauding and yelling BRAVO!
Let’s look some of them. It is important to notice that all the videos were amazing and each one offered inspiration to all of us .
We would like to make a special notice for the following video poems. For the poetry which was accompanying the videos, the depth of meaning or the sound and music of the video poems as also for the excellent direction and high quality inspiration we would like to make a favorable notice to the folllowing videos of International Video Poetry 2018.
1. RUSSIA Inga Shepeleva
The project is based on the Yakut mythology and represents the intimate, empirical, bodily experiences of a modern woman, presented to the viewer through the optics of the language and culture of the peoples of the Far North (Indigenous peoples of Siberia). It is the reflection of a person who returned to childhood, to fears and fantasies, which later become a base for the poetic perception of the world. The feeling of being frightened by the primordial chaos of nature, the world of totemism, spirits and vague meanings. Pagan dark forces lead to the growth of the human soul outside the society and cultural context.
The awareness of completely different foundations of the immobile forest, water and snow causes great fear. It forces to return again and again to deliberately simplified images taken from childhood memories and teenage dreams. A girl, a warrior, a hunter, a victim, shown in a clip-like flickering, becomes a hologram of a non-existent hermetic world, the door to which is about to close.
2. PORTUGAL Mario Henrique Leiria
Mário-Henrique Leiria (1923–1980) was a Portuguese surrealist poet. Born in Lisbon, he studied at the Escola de Belas Artes. He and his fellow surrealists were involved in an absurdist plot to overthrow the dictatorship of Antonio Salazar. He is best known for his books Contos do Gin-Tonic (Gin and Tonic Tales, 1973) and Novos Contos do Gin (More Gin Tales, 1974). He died in 1980.
3. AUSTRALIA Radheya Jegatheva
A film that explores the relationship between man and technology…told from the perspective of a phone. This hand drawn animated film is based on the poem ‘Seven Billion’ written by the film director that won 2 National poetry awards: The Young Australian Writer’s National Award for Poetry, selected out of a field of 30,000 and the Karen W Treanor Poetry Award (Youth).
We would like to thank all the poets and video artists who were present at the festival and who travelled to come to Athens so as to be live at the festival. Let’s see who were these artists.
Chistina Papanikola / from Patras (Greece)
Tziadora Rhodes(Greece)
Soar (Germany)
Naniso Tswai is a Berlin-based author, academic and spoken word artist. His work is strongly embedded in issues of justice and identity constructions. (GERMANY)
Inga Shepeleva (RUSSIA)
Julian Weinert (GERMANY)
We would like to thank the video artist Kosta Papakosta with his video installation Non Sequitur . Many people visited the art piece of K.Papakosta and they were impressed by it.
The artistic collective OPEN NIGHT CINEMA from IRELAND performed live at the festival. 12 people full of energy and devotion to their artistic spirit travelled from Ireland and Italy to present a theatrical play of W.B.Yeats based on an ancient myth titled AT THE HAWK’S WELL. They used technics of japanese theater NO, experimental visuals and light show as also industrial noise live music. It was a mystical, pagan performance. More than 250 people attended the show and everyone was absolutely focused on them.
Finally, we would like to thank all the poets and the performers who came up to the stage and shared their poems with the Athenian audience.
The publishers from ΘΡΑΚΑ, FUTURA, ΑΓΧΙΒΑΣΙΗΝ, ΕΝΕΚΕΝ, ΣΑΙΞΠΗΡΙΚΟΝ were at the festival. People were looking at the books. Poetry Collections filled the fouagie of the theater.
The VOIDNESS Publication (Εκδόσεις Κενότητα) published 3 new books which werew circulation for first time during the International Video Poetry Festival. 
We would like to special thank the poet Dimitris Troaditis who lives in Australia. We were very happy to welcome his poetry and his presence at the festival.
