The festival continues online with exclusive content
The festival continues online with exclusive content
REELpoetry continues online Sept 21 – 25, and each day you can participate on the REELcafe live zoom in real time to talk about your film and meet others participating from across the country and around the world. Also featured over five days are all the films submitted to the Open Call that were chosen by an international panel of judges for the 2026 festival.
Additionally, in partnership with Poems Not Bombs we are presenting short films from displaced children in Odesa, Ukraine, as well as from Turkey, and the Maatwala South Asian Collective. Our Texas Round-up features work by Houston area poets and filmmakers, plus Outlier Moving Pictures (Pam Falkenberg and jack Cochran) from Austin, Tx, making films with poems by Texas Poets Laureate Octavio Quintanilla and Emmy Perez, and Houston poets Jane Creighton and Aliah Lavonne Tigh. You can also view all this on demand through Nov 15.
Thank you to everyone who joined us for an amazing and inspiring event. View the photos from the festival below.
Welcome all! REELpoetry is a hybrid international poetry film festival dedicated to short films and videos infused with poetry or with a strong poetic sensibility. Based in Houston, Texas, this festival is on the radar of curators, presenters and festival directors from Australia to Germany, Mexico to Ireland.
Our open call accepts film and video intertwined with poetry, and also work that’s poetic in nature – wordless, experimental, animated or documentary – under 6 minutes in length. We also provide a platform to network and grow in an open, supportive community.
REELpoetry 2025 was one of the highlights of my creative career. I learned so much and am so inspired to continue to experiment with the possibilities of videopoetry. Thank you for such an amazing experience.”
Peter Whittenberger
Interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker
What a wonderful festival! I was blown away by the array of poetry films and filmmakers I was exposed to as a part of the online screenings and talks. Houston is also a wonderful place to visit, and everyone I met was lovely. Thank you to the REELpoetry and Public Poetry teams!
Kevin Dublin
Educator, Writer, Programmer
This is a great festival, meticulously organized and hosted. I’ve only been able to attend the online part of the festival so far, but the Zoom cafes are fabulous, great to be able to watch a series of films and then talk with the makers straight afterwards.
Janet Lees
Poet and lens based artist
