Many of you will have heard the news on other channels… but on the 7th anniversary of launching this work as a poem at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival we are delighted to announce ‘My Name Is Swan’ as the winner of ‘BEST NARRATIVE’ at the 2023 International Poetry Film Festival, Los Angeles.
This is not an acceptance speech rather a ‘thank you’ to everyone involved in its making, whether you backed our crowdfunding, invested time or money in the production of our film or offered encouragement or counsel along the way your contributions have all been sincerely appreciated.
After the poem’s 2016 launch ‘Swan’ took off on a tour of all the pubs in London that bore his name. The kind of places where we guessed he’d not get served but, as a poem, might find a different kind of welcome, a new audience. Alison Poltock, then Director of The East End Film Festival suggested such an undertaking needed to be documented and enlisted filmmaker Adam Carr with the task. At this point the brief was open: shoot some footage, make a trailer. Then we’d see. Assuming he’d pop along to one or two of the pubs where we’d arranged readings I was surprised and equally delighted that Adam was intent on attending all 15, invested in the text as much as its documentation. Along the way he became my counsellor and confident as our road-movie-poem began to emerge on towpaths and slipways from Staines to Wapping, from Covent Garden to Islington.
I’m sure Adam and those closely involved in the film’s production are better placed to chronicle its development but since its completion we have undertaken previews, screenings and readings in Rome, Venice, Milan and New York, at the Turner Contemporary, Margate, at the Riverside Studios, in Hammersmith, even going rogue, off-schedule at the Oxford Lit Fest. A companion piece ‘Reynard’ was recently recorded by actor John Nettles and a further ‘journey work’ ‘Body 115’ was staged last month and will return to the Hope Theatre, Islington in August.
Special thanks, of course, must go to Kate Verity Wilson and her team at Fury Films, to Nick Franco and 1185 Productions and lastly to Taka and Sam for their masterful soundtrack. The film ‘My Name Is Swan’ is now available to watch on its own website:
JAN NOBLE 