OZ Arts Nashville Hosts Special Screenings by Defy Film Festival and Kindling Arts Festival
A Heroic Couplets Initiative
May 7-8
FILMS
(in order of appearance)
and all the empty space in between, still ringing
Poem by
C. SINCLAIRE BROWN
Directed by
DREW MAYNARD
Legs
An Ekphrasis on “When I Die, Please Donate My Legs to a Mermaid” by
CIONA ROUSE
Written & Directed by
LUKE HARVEY
Rations
A Tone Poem by
JOHN SHAKESPEAR
Directed by
CALEB DIRKS
Unrequited
An adaptation of the poems “In the Want-nursery” and “Love Poem Ending at UPS” by
JOSHUA MOORE
Directed by
SAMANTHA SZWAGLIS
Familiar
Poem by
ELISE ANDERSON
Directed by
KATIE MCCALL
Slick Like Dark
An adaptation of the poem “The Instant Before It Collapses and Is Promptly Forgotten” by
MEG WADE
Directed by
HAVEN NUTT
I Am Sorry
Poem written and performed by
FRANK “FRIZZY” SYKES
Directed by
CHRIS DURAI
Narcissus
Poem by
LAGNAJITA MUKHOPADHYAY
Directed by
John Warren
Due Us Part
A visual adaptation of the poem “Black Face / White Joker” by
CAMERON L. MITCHELL
Directed by
MONTEZ MICKLES
Here is When You Are
A visual adaptation of multiple poems by
DAN HOY
Created by
SOPHIA GORDON
Nourish Her Violently
Poem by
ROBYN LEIGH LEAR
Directed by
NICHOLE MARIE LIM & NATALIE RUFFINO WILSON
To Have A Name
Inspired by the poem by
ALORA YOUNG
Directed by
ANGELL FOSTER
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
“Nashville is a beautiful place to live”, thought Caleb to himself as he wrote his bio. “I guess it provides the things I need.” There was a time in his life where he thought he may venture out from his tiny Kansas town and live in the great cities of our country: Chicago, LA, NYC… but something brought him to Nashville and it held him there.
“It’s somewhere in between the place I began and the ideals of my dreams; and it’s proven to be just right. I can own a home, work freelance and pay my bills, have amazing friends, a great arts community, and access to beautiful nature all around us. I think I’ll stay a little longer,” he quietly said to himself
Chris Durai is a screenwriter, author and filmmaker obsessed with telling underrepresented stories from history. His past works include Solid State: Chaos in Amerika, a television script about a CIA family’s struggle to navigate the social and political upheavals of the 1970s. Chris is currently working on a graphic novel about the Virginia Company’s invasion of the Tsenacomoco nation. He’s also an environmentalist, Girl Scout troop leader and cave mapper.
Angell, a true multi-hyphenate, dances between the mediums of filmmaker, writer, photographer, and model. The intersections of being both Black and a woman, mental health and journeys to heal one’s self are fuel for Angell’s work. While earning her BS in Art and Film at Fisk University, Angell was able to explore her deep love of filmmaking and content creation as she created for many of the businesses on her campus and in the Nashville area. Angell has been featured in Native Magazine and has had work featured in Planned Parenthood’s UNSTOPPABLE campaign.
Sophia’s practice primarily includes installation art, performance art, video, animation, and music. Both data and circuit bending as well as the compatibility of old and new technologies play a large part in her exploration within these mediums. Her most recent projects have examined mental health, cybernetics, and the occult. She is the founder and operator of TeleUphoria Media Network, an experimental television broadcasting and production company, where she currently curates two channels (Miller’s Grove Public Access and Channel 43). She is also a member of the transgressive art collective Trance// Furnace.
Writer/Director Luke Harvey loves to push the boundaries of what is considered film, and what is considered fiction. Often presenting characters outside of his films as real, he breaks down the barriers between where the fantasy tale ends and reality begins. Combining elements such as graphic design, photography, Alternate Reality Games, and unfiction allows him to explore his art outside of the typical film medium. All this extends the world of his production company, Mossflower Pictures, and pushes audiences to enjoy fresh experiences in film.
Nichole Marie Lim has worked in the industry for almost 15 years, with credits including Castle Falls, A Week Away, Adult Interference and the short film Never Too Old, for which she won an award. Now producing and directing, she likes to explore the light in the darkness and will always find the quirk and humor in everything. She is driven by her love of people, their connections to one another, and the general weirdness of life.
Drew Maynard is a filmmaker and photographer born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. One of his favorite things in the world is to work with friends on short films, music videos, docs, and photo shoots. His films have screened at festivals across the country, including SXSW, Nashville Film Festival, Virginia Film Festival, the Kansas City Film Festival, and many others. Additionally, his work has been featured on Film School Rejects and No Film School. He and his wife enjoy going on walks in their neighborhood and drinking cheap wine on school nights.
Originally from the Midwest, Katie has lived and worked in Nashville for 8 years. She writes, shoots, edits, art directs, and, most beloved, watches. Katie loves thoughtful, personal, and surrealist works of art, and while trying to implement those spirits in her own projects, she doesn’t like to take herself too seriously and truly appreciates a healthy sense of humor.
A Nashville native and Tennessee State University graduate, Montez is a multi-hyphenate creative passionate about telling Black stories through a surrealist cinematic lens. He tells stories that move him by representing those who may be overlooked. He’s used his talents in collaborations with local Nashville businesses, nonprofits and community members alike to create compelling media. Montez believes in no limitations when it comes to his work, he just goes for it.
Haven Nutt is a 29 year-old filmmaker, living in Nashville, Tennessee. She earned her degree in Acting, Theatre/Television & Film from Pepperdine University. Growing up, she always had a camera in her hand and loved making films — especially horror films — with her friends. She loves the slow-paced, chilling, almost home-video aesthetic of 70s horror films, which is what encouraged her to start shooting on Super 8 and 16mm film. Once she shot her first film Maskerade on Super 8, she was hooked, and has since developed a strong passion for this art. She is known for her feminine, eerie, southern gothic film style. Her latest film Divulge was an opportunity to incorporate her passions for Self Defense, kickboxing, and anti-sexual harassment/domestic violence activism, into an artistic visual experimental narrative film. Her entrepreneurial career ranges from filmmaking to acting/modeling, and running her wellness retreat (Heart Haven) on the lake.
Natalie Ruffino Wilson is a filmmaker from Texas by way of Nashville, TN. She started as an actor at the age of 16 and moved into freelance filmmaking at 27. She has written and directed several projects as well as founded a production company with her husband, Kyler Wilson, called Outside Our Means. They currently have several projects in development and will be releasing their first feature length film in 2021.
Samantha is a seasoned writer/ director here in Nashville, TN. Originally from Chicago, her production portfolio consists of projects such as the Starz series “Boss” starring Kelsey Grammer and the Chicago International Film Festival nominee The Girls on Liberty Street. Samantha’s most recent work includes a variety of local film projects: “Property Brothers: Buying & Selling,” “Fossils,” and the Nashville 48 Hours Film Project. Her debut short, Antebellum, is currently in post-production.
John Warren is a film/video artist, a lecturer at Vanderbilt University, and the Artistic Director of the psychedelic-themed Far Out Film Fest. He primarily uses a 16mm Bolex motion picture camera to explore the lyrical and subjective frontiers of experimental, documentary, and narrative. His cinematic work has been exhibited internationally at a wide range of art museums and film festivals.
ABOUT THE POETS
Elise is a poet, musician, and freelance writer with an MFA from the University of Florida. Her poetry looks at likenesses between human lives/bodies and elements/processes of the non-human natural world. Her poems tend to be brick-worded; I like the complexity to be there in spirit, not in vocabulary. Elise was the 2019 Writer-in-Residence through the Great Smoky Mountains Association and the 2017 artist-in-residence at the Austin Cary Memorial Forest. Her work has appeared in Metropolis Magazine, Hobart, Quick Fiction, The Oakland Review, Charlotte Viewpoint, Hearty Magazine, Smokies Life, and more. She also writes and performs music as WHEATS.
Born in California, raised (mostly) in Texas, and now living in Tennessee, C. Sinclaire Brown is a queer black poet and scholar, currently working on her PhD in English Literature at Vanderbilt University, where she recently received her MFA in Poetry. She previously studied literature and poetry at Rice University where she was also the editor-in-chief of R2: The Rice Review. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in R2: The Rice Review, Poets.org, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, and The Familiar Wild: On Dogs and Poetry (Sundress Publications, 2020).
Dan Hoy is the author of the poetic trilogy The Deathbed Editions (Octopus Books, 2016) and several poetry chapbooks, most recently 1984 (Ghost City Press, 2020) and The Terraformers (Third Man Books, 2017). His work has appeared in The Best American Nonrequired Reading and other anthologies and magazines, and his collection The Terraformers was the recipient of an Elgin Award by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. His online project with Mike Kleine, We R the World, was featured in the 2019 Spring Thing Festival of Interactive Fiction, and their collaborative novella, Where the Sky Meets the Ocean and the Air Tastes Like Metal and the Birds Don’t Make a Sound, will be released by Trnsfr Books in 2021.
Robyn Leigh Lear was born to the world, but she claims no country. Her soul dances through the North Carolina hills, her heart beats for the history of Savannah, GA, but her eyes look longingly toward deep, unexplored corners of the Southern landscape. Her writing is a combination of chaos and searching, and perhaps her history reflects this directionless wandering. She is the creative dreamer behind Authors and Artists: The Regenerates, a writing and art collective that attempts to better understand the two mediums. Robyn is the Creative Director and “resident dreamer” for April Gloaming Publishing, an independent press located in Nashville. She works closely with AG authors and artists to help them bring their dreams from the background into reality. She also serves as a poetry and art editor for Waxing & Waning, the literary journal published through April Gloaming Publishing.
Cameron L. Mitchell Has been acclaimed as The Actor Laureate of Murfreesboro and a graduate of Middle TN State University. He is Founder of Free Fyre, an organization of spoken word artists who engage the community with a blend of poetry, theatrics, and transformation. When Cameron is not mentoring youth for Southern Word, you can catch him being active in the community making a positive impact.
Joshua is a Nashville poet and MFA graduate from Vanderbilt University. He is the Lead Writer/Producer of the VPM and Stitcher podcast, Seizing Freedom and Host/Producer of Nashville Public Radio’s Versify podcast. His work on Versify was nominated for a 2020 Webby Award in Arts and Culture. He is the winner of a 2018 Academy of American Poets University Prize.
Lagnajita Mukhopadhyay is the author of the books this is our war (Penmanship Press, Brooklyn, 2016) and everything is always leaving (M.C. Sarkar & Sons, Kolkata, 2019), along with her latest poetry album release i don’t know anyone here in 2020. An Indian-born poet raised in Nashville, she is a recent graduate of English at Belmont University. She was the first Nashville Youth Poet Laureate and the 2016 Poet Ambassador for the Southeast. Find her work in Poetry Society of America, Nashville Arts Magazine, and Connecticut River Review, among others. As a recent Pushcart Prize nominee, she is epic poem collage stranger and break-up with America tour— on self-imposed exile from New Nashville; she doesn’t know anyone here.
Ciona Rouse is a poet. The author of Vantablack, the first chapbook of Third Man Books (2017), her poetry has also appeared in numerous publications. She collaborates with other artists quite often; she served as a resident poet for the Nick Cave: FEAT art exhibition at Frist Art Museum, was featured on NPR in collaboration with poets Adia Victoria and Caroline Randall Williams, and creates The Longest Night production at OZ Arts with Jason Shelton and Jeff Coffin. Find Rouse’s work at www.cionarousepoetry.com
John Miguel Shakespear is a writer and musician from Massachusetts. His prose has appeared in publications such as Gulf Coast, The Believer, and Cincinnati Review, and his first record earned praise from American Songwriter and NPR. He earned an MFA from Vanderbilt University, where he served as co-editor-inchief of Nashville Review. Born to an Argentine father and an Irish-American mother, he bears no known relationship to William Shakespeare, but he likes the guy.
Frank “Frizzy” Sykes is a Poet, Actor, Spoken Word Artist, and Marketer born in Nashville, and raised in Columbia, TN. Graduated from Columbia Central High School. Athlete, both basketball and football. Attended College at Austin Peay State University. Former Deputy Sheriff and Officer of the Year for Davidson County Sheriff’s Office. Owner of Frizzy Productions & Curator of Poet’s Playground. The place for the poet to play. (@poets_playground_ on IG.)
Meg Wade is a National Poetry Series finalist and a former Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin’s Creative Writing Institute. She received her MFA from the University of Arizona and her manuscript, Slick Like Dark, won the 2017 Snowbound Chapbook Award and is out now by Tupelo Press. Meg has been the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, is Co-Founder and Curator for Be Witched: a literary and arts event series, and is currently at work as a first-year candidate for a Masters of Divinity at Vanderbilt University. She lives and writes in Nashville, Tennessee.
Alora Young is the Youth Poet Laureate of the Southern United States. She is a two-time TEDx Speaker, a scholastic gold medalist, a Youngarts winner, a recipient of the Princeton Prize in Race Relations, Mahogany red-lit prize, and the International Human Rights Day Rising Activist award. She is the founder of AboveGround, an organization seeking to create equity in Nashville elementary schools through creative writing and Black history. Alora has previous publications in the New York Times, Rattle, Signal Mountain Review, Rigorous Mag, and Ice Colony Journal.
This project is funded, in part, by a grant from
