FILMETRY: a Festival of Poetry and Film is an annual collaborative art-making endeavor that pairs filmmakers with poets to create exciting new pieces of work. Filmmakers are invited to synthesize and adapt poetic work into film with only one rule: a commitment to including the text of the poem, in full, in the finished piece. The hope is that through this collaboration, both artistic partners can witness not just an adaptation of a written piece into audiovisual media, but the transformation of the original piece into something wholly new.
This project began in 2019 as a collaboration between co-founders Cindy Hunter Morgan (poet) and myself. Check out the fest website.
Romance (2024)
film by Pete Johnston
poem by Cindy Hunter Morgan
The Gone Missing (2023)
film by Pete Johnston
haibun by Joseph Aversano
official selection, 2023 Haibun Film Festival
The Longest Journey (2023)
film by Pete Johnston
haibun by Bob Lucky
official selection, 2023 Haibun Film Festival
STRIKE (2022)
written and read by Cindy Hunter Morgan
film by Pete Johnston
drone footage by Jackson Hunter Klaers
Mother of All Pandemics (2021)
Poem by Brian Gilmore. Directed by Jeff Wray. Shot and edited by me.
six feet (2021)
Poem by Danielle Legros Georges, published in VOICES AMIDST THE VIRUS: POETS RESPOND TO THE PANDEMIC
Premiered in the 2021 MSU Filmetry Festival
Dear Johnny Cash (2021)
Poem by Cindy Hunter Morgan, published in VOICES AMIDST THE VIRUS: POETS RESPOND TO THE PANDEMIC
Narrated by Emi Clark
starring Chad Parsons
premiered in the 2021 MSU Filmetry Festival
published in Issue Four of Atticus Review
Incident on Grand River, 1967. (2020)
Poem by Cindy Hunter Morgan, film by Pete Johnston. The 2020 iteration took work from the anthology RESPECT: The Poetry of Detroit Music (Michigan State University Press, 2020). Though the COVID-19 epidemic changed our plans for a premiere, we debuted the films online and hosted a live Q&A afterward.
Cosmic Memory 1 (2019)
Poem by Cindy Hunter Morgan. Film by Pete Johnston.