On Wednesday 26 August 2026, as part of the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival 2026, Inizjamed hosted a night of poetry films followed by a panel discussion. The event was curated by Kenneth Scicluna.
The films included “Aċitilena” (2015) by Luke Borg, filmed in Marsa Creek and featuring Adrian Grima’s poem in Maltese published in Klin u Kapriċċi Oħra (Klabb Kotba Maltin, 2015), translated into English by Albert Gatt (“Acetylene”) and published in Last-Ditch Ecstasy (Poetrywala, Mumbai, 2017).
According to film maker and academic, Kenneth Scicluna, Aċitilena (Acytelene),
“Just like the homonymous poem by Adrian Grima on which it is based, Luke Borg’s film shows the harbour no tourist sees. The harbour whose face is as furrowed as that of Dürer’s mother, as rough as life can force one to be, and yet, as genuine and as full of honest life, as no cruise-liner terminal could ever be.”
Poetry Film Night and Panel
Inizjamed returns to a poetical genre it helped pioneer in Malta: the poetry film. As part of Valletta 2018, Inizjamed was among the first to commission poetry films locally — and this year, that initiative comes back to life with a curated screening of poetry and poetical films from Malta and abroad.
The selection is being curated by Kenneth Scicluna, who will also lead the panel discussion, including key panelists like Elizabeth Grech (Mana Chuma Teatro), that follows the screening. The conversation will tap into the lines that blurs the poetry film and the poetical film, and how film can carry or transform or extend a poem’s language, rhythm, and meaning.
These are some of the points raised by Kenneth Scicluna during the discussion:
- Some films are termed to be poetry films, others are considered to be poetic in nature — in essence, poetic films (or even, a film poem).
- What, for you, distinguishes one from the other?
- Which of the films you have just watched would be more one, or the other?
- If, based on certain definitions (that I am sure will emerge, especially via Adrian) a poetry film is poem first and film later, is it literature first and film second?
- Again, based on distinctions that will have emerged, a film poem is an (audio)visual work based on evocative imagery, editing, and potentially sound, could it not evoke similar responses to the kind of reactions a poem, or a poetry film might create?
- Should film poems not be considered as a certain sort of non-verbal poem? (I’m assuming that on this point, a distinction would be made between canonical aspects of written/verbal poetry, and film language.)
- What would you rather have?
- A poetry film which is non-poetic in style, even though the poetry itself might be evocative?
- An evocative film poem which has no connection to a literal (and literary) poetic work?
- In a time when brief, intrusive audiovisual media reign supreme, especially among the younger generations, what uses do poetry films have?
- In creating, and curating, audiovisual works, particularly in Erika’s case who handled both forms, what sort of decisions did you make? What aspects did you look out for?
- “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” All of the films shown deal with identity, and react to it in different ways — would you say that the more effective attempts (that go beyond limits, if you will) are literary in nature, audiovisual, or both?
The panelists
Adrian Grima is a poet, professor with the Maltese department at the University of Malta and at INALCO in France, researcher, Inizjamed cofounder and until 2018, Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival (FMLM) coordinator, and one of its guest authors after that. Adrian has written the only academic paper on poetry films in Maltese, is the poet behind one of the films to be shown at the poetry film night, and actively pushed to have poetry films screened at the Literature Festival, and also initiated, in collaboration with the Valletta 2018 Foundation, a programme of poetry-film making that ran between 2014 and 2019.
Elizabeth Grech is a poet, translator, cultural organiser, and former guest author of the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival. Earlier this year she was involved in a short-film project by French-Canadian filmmaker Mathilde Capone called Widnet il-Baħar (Les oreilles de la mer / The Ears of the Sea). Elizabeth lives between Reggio Calabria and Paris.
Erika Lanzafame is a budding filmmaker and newly-minted Creative Media Production graduate from the MCAST Institute for the Creative Arts. Erika possesses insight and maturity which are rare among peers. Last year, Erika co-directed Searching for My Own Body, a poetry film based on the homonymous poem by Yesenia Montilla (and lauded by the same poet), and this year finished her degree programme with a poetic, auto-ethnographic film called Se ci sei, dammi un segno (Give me a sign, if you’re here). Erika was born and raised in Sicily, and lives in Malta.
Caldon Mercieca is a poet, cultural organiser, philosopher, and former poetry film coordinator at the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival, curating the screenings held during the festival. Later, through his involvement with the Valletta 2018 foundation, also helped launch the poetry-filmmaking initiative, the results of which were also screened yearly at the Literature Festival.
Films tal-Poeżija
Inizjamed jerġa’ lura għal ġeneru poetiku li kien fost il-pijunieri tiegħu f’Malta: il-film tal-poeżija. Bħala parti minn Valletta 2018, Inizjamed kien fost l-ewwel li kkummissjona films tal-poeżija lokalment — u din is-sena, din l-inizjattiva qed terġa’ tieħu l-ħajja b’għażla kkurata ta’ films poetiċi u tal-poeżija minn Malta u lil hinn.
Dan huwa l-kumment tad-direttur tal-films u lettur Kenneth Scicluna, dwar “Aċitilena”:
Bħall-poeżija omonima ta’ Adrian Grima, li fuqha hu msejjes, il-film ta’ Luke Borg hu xhud tal-port li l-ebda turist ma jara. Port li ġarrab, u li jilbes dak it-tiġrib fit-tikmix ta’ wiċċu. Port li għex ħajja b’iktar inżul milli tlugħ, imma li mexa u għadd u li jaħlef fuq kull pass li kellu jagħmel — port ħaj u ġenwin kif l-ebda terminal tal-cruise-liners qatt ma jista’ jkun.
L-għażla qed tiġi kkurata minn Kenneth Scicluna, li se jmexxi wkoll id-diskussjoni wara l-wiri tal-films, li se tinkludi figuri importanti bħal Elizabeth Grech (Mana Chuma Teatro). Id-diskussjoni se tidħol fl-ispazju sfuż bejn il-film tal-poeżija u l-film poetiku, u kif il-films jistgħu jġorru, jittrasformaw jew jestendu l-lingwa, ir-ritmu u t-tifsir tal-poeżija.
Ħajr/Thanks to: Arts Council Malta, Versopolis, APS Bank, Spazju Kreattiv, Għaqda tal-Malti — Università, Istituto Italiano di Cultura di La Valletta, Teatru Salesjan, Vincent’s Eco Farm, Fondazzjoni tal-Arkivji Nutarili, Seen and Heard, La Rotta dei Fenici.
All pictures by Elisa von Brockdorff for Inizjamed
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