Welcome to 2023 Monologues & Poetry International
Highlighting Individual Talent and Creativity Through Monologues, Soliloquies, and Spoken-Word From Around The Globe
"RELENTLESS" - 1st Place Best Monologue/Soliloquy
Director, Rufina Prshisovskaya
Bring your phone up to your face. Look, there are lovely faces but this one's yours. And behind those eyes, in the private purgatory of your head spins the accursed carousel of torment strung with your thoughts, half-chewed quotes, sobriquets. Are you ready to ride? Just don't let go of the phone, just stay at home. See if your dome cracks.
El Ojo Comienza En La Mano is a tribute to campesino histories in rural CA through the artwork of an artist largely absent from critical conversations on Chicanx art, Ruben A. Sanchez, as well as an unsentimental reckoning with the fate of many cultural workers that struggle between paying rent and/or creative endeavors.
"The Eye Begins In The Hand" - 1st Place Best Long Version
Director, Yehuda Sharim
Caged Bird is an animated and jazzy short blending the worlds of spoken word poetry, theatrical performance, music, dance, and retro visual design to express the strength of a woman setting her boundaries in the face of a possessive love.
"Caged Bird" - 1st Place Best Spoken Word/Poetry
Directors, Dana Dajani, Rami Kanso
2nd Place Best Monologue/Soliloquy
"RE:Growth" - Director, Douglas Seth RIdloff
The hearing community has, through the course of history, treated the Deaf community as a particularly undesirable species of weed. Hearing aids, cochlear implants, speech education, the marginalization of signed languages, sterilization programs, and now even the use of CRISPR gene-splicing technology, are all attempts to remove or correct the Deaf weeds in humanity’s garden. Crab theory is a major and ongoing discussion in the Deaf community due to the intensity of the internalized oppression felt by group insiders who have often been intentionally isolated from their peers and language models. This poem uses the metaphor of unwanted weeds as a way to process that history and reframe the community as a stubbornly resilient population, capable of growth and beauty.
2nd Place Best Long Version
"INDIGO" - Director, Mona Okulla Obua
INDIGO is an afro-surrealist poetry short film telling the story of two black German women who meet during a hair braiding session. First experiencing a moment of aversion, they discover affection through the intimacy of braiding. Merging boundaries between feature film, visual art, and poetry, INDIGO takes us on a journey through black German community life in the diaspora, hair braiding as a spiritual ritual, and female intimacy. The film's artistic research is based on traditional African hair braiding rituals and the color indigo as a symbol of life in the diaspora.
2nd Place Best Spoken Word/Poetry
RELEASE" - Director, Daniel Johns
A short film born from the pain of situationships. ‘Release’ is an exploration into the feelings that bind two people together, but also the feelings that keep them apart. It’s a harsh reminder that not everybody has the capacity to reciprocate your love at the moment you want them to. People's hearts and minds can often be tainted or shrouded by the darkness of their pasts. But you should always remember that their inability to move forward from their own trauma isn’t a reflection on you. It simply isn’t the right time, yet.
3rd Place Best Monologue/Silioquy
"I look into your eyes as I heal what I’ve been wounded"
Director, Laurene Praget
Within the privacy of a bed, in front of a bashful body, a voice tells of the disconnection of a woman with her own sensuality, due to the mistreatment she experienced and that all had the same root: male domination.
This video self-portrait is about how the patriarchal system enters our beds, our hearts, the depths of our personal lives. It enters into everyday life and comes to touch our bodies and lives since we are children and leaves marks, less or more profound, depending on the history of each one.
In the form of a video-poem, it is an intimate and personal project while it comes to dealing with feelings common to many women, reaffirming the saying that the personal is political.
3rd Place Best Long Version
"BIND" - Director, Eileen McClory
A sumptuous poetry and dance film set in the exquisite Robinson Library in Armagh, BIND explores the legacy of binds between past and present, the tension between elevation, elites and access to knowledge, progress and change, the visibility and constraints on women, and how a visionary institution contributes to progress in the modern world.
3rd Place Best Spoken Word/Poetry
For the Skeptical" - Director, Dawn Westlake
Stop autocracy in its tracks. With facts.
Prepare To Submit Your Comedic, Dramatic, Out-of-the-Box
Creative Monologues. The Submission Period Reopens in May 2024!
We challenge you to take your work to another level and see how creative you can be. Create scenes, use props,
Think out of the box to create your Award Winning Monologue.
