2026 Festival

A showcase of short poetic films featuring World Premieres from Texas, and US Premieres from Belgium, Greece, Netherlands, Spain, New Zealand and Ukraine. Also screening Juried Winners nationwide. Readings by Texas Poets Laureate Octavio Quintanilla and Emmy Perez, and Marie Brown, Chris Wise, Jane Creighton, Alliah Lavonne Tigh.

Sunday morning films and performances by deaf artists using American Sign Language interpreted in English. A portion of all festival ticket sales will be donated to poetry programs for internally displaced children in Odesa, Ukraine.

Opening Reception
Friday, Sept 18, 7-9 at Moxy

Everyone who has a ticket is invited to come to the Opening Reception, Friday, September 18 from 7-9 PM at Moxy, 412 Main Street in Downtown Houston. They are very generously providing $10 Reception parking! Get your tickets and join us.

Moxy, is also our festival headquarters, and we have negotiated a great room rate for those who are traveling to Houston for the Festival. Details HERE.

Short & Sweet

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.

Thank you to our Sponsors!

Hear from our 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