Visual Verse celebrates film & video artists who present documentaries about writers, pieces which revolve around poetry, and short story adaptations. After presenting work by four leading literary filmmakers, a discussion will be moderated by Rachael Rakes. Rachael Rakes is the film co-editor for The Brooklyn Rail. Ram Devineni has produced, edited and directed the feature documentary "The Human Tower, " which was shot in India, Chile, and Spain. The film is being distributed by Goldcrest, which has won 19 Academy Awards and 28 BAFTAs. Recently, he produced Amir Naderi's feature film, "Vegas: Based on a True Story," which premiered at the Venice & Tribeca Film Festivals and a three-part travel documentary TV series called "On the Road," about endangered languages shot in West Africa, Asia, and the Middle East and showing on LINK TV. Devineni is one of the founding partners of Academia Internacional de Cinema, the first independent film school in Brazil. He is recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and New York State Council for the Arts. More information at www.rattapallax.comJohn Scott has made three adaptations of Elizabeth Bishop poems with a fourth nearly finished. His latest, "First Death in Nova Scotia" (2012) was one of 30 chosen from 870 to screen at the Zebra Poetry Film Festival in Berlin last year and has played numerous other festivals and events and was featured in Northwestern University's journal TriQuarterly. He has also made a feature length documentary on the poet, John Stiles called "Scouts Are Cancelled," broadcast nationally in Canada.Cheryl Gross is a poetry/animator, illustrator, and Professor at Pratt Institute where she teaches motion graphics, illustration and promotes this particular art genre. She mainly collaborates with the poet Nicelle Davis.Immy Humes is an experienced producer and director of non-fiction media of all kinds. She has made a wide variety of segments and documentary hours for television, and has worked as a producer for Dateline NBC, National
Geographic, A&E, CourtTV, USA, and Michael Moore's TV Nation. Her distinctive independent documentary films have received many honors, including an Academy Award nomination, and her work has won funding from the NEA, Jerome Foundation, New York State Council for the Arts (NYSCA), Soros Fund (now Sundance), Robeson Fund, ITVS, NEH, and other funders.
