HIPPOPOETESS

HIPPOPOETESS Experimental animation-based documentary written, directed, animated, performed and edited by Francesca Fini 53 min, 2018 Hippopoetess is an experimental animation-based film that tells the story of the American writer Amy Lowell and her desire to succeed in a world dominated by men. My personal story as an artist overlaps with that of this great poet born in Boston in the late nineteenth century, challenging space and time: her intellectual fury, her stubbornness, her ambition and the obstacles she had to face. In particular, the film deals with an unpleasant theme as old as the world: body-shaming against women; Amy was not beautiful, she was overweight, and this physical peculiarity was used to scoff her, right in the intellectual circle of the men poets she frequented. They called her Hippopoetess, so to say hippopotamus poetess. As a survivor of bullying myself, I feel deeply close to this extraordinary woman. The film deals with this fashinating story with the weapon of the dreamlike surrealism of experimental animation. 3d anaglyph glasses suggested but not mandatory!

Year

2018

Director

Francesca Fini

Duration

53 min

Country

Italy

Language

English, Italian