Night is Paper 4 mins 28 secs UHD Video 2022
Night is Paper transports its audience into a realm where reality is fluid and understanding remains tantalizingly just out of reach. The narrative invites viewers to eavesdrop on the lives of shadowy characters shrouded in ambiguity. Concealed faces and obscure rituals unfold within a painterly labyrinth, whilst enigma blankets every scene.
The work is a cinepoetic collaboration between artist film maker Martin Sercombe and novelist Dr Thom Conroy. The soundscape is a remix of found sources from the catalogue of the Free Music Archive.
This film was selected for Frame to Frames : Your Eyes Follow II
Ekphrastic Poetry Film Prize, FOTOGENIA film festival, Mexico City, 2023
POETRY BOOK / LIBRO DE POESIA
The accompanying bilingual book including the ekphrastic poems, colour film stills, synopses, artists details and a QR LINK to the 17-film curation is published by
http://www.liberatedwords.com
liberatedwordspoetryfilms@gmail.com
Songs 10 mins 25 secs UHD Video 2022
The American poet E. E. Cummings’ work began to enter the public domain in 2019, which then allowed other artists to make use of his poetry in derivative works across a range of media. Taking advantage of this, Songs chooses five short poems from his first three volumes: Tulips and Chimneys, & and XLI Poems as the basis for extension into the realm of the moving image.
The translation poses a number of challenges, namely finding ways to preserve the lyrical flow of Cummings’ language as it might be read or spoken, whilst preserving his idiosyncratic use of syntax, line breaks and punctuation. The second challenge is finding appropriate ways to illustrate Cummings’ word images without over defining or misconstruing their meanings or intents. These five works make no claims to have solved these problems. Rather, they attempt to preserve the spirit of the original works via complementary sounds, music and imagery, reinventing and reimagining them in the process.
All the images were generated using Midjourney, and the soundtracks comprise of public domain music selected from the Free Music Archive.
First screened at Square Edge Community Art Centre, Palmerston North 2023.
The Mask 4 mins UHD Video 2023
The film began with a poem written for the Given Words project organized by Palabras Prestadas and Charles Olsen in Andalusia, Spain. The words given were: broken/roto, reflection/reflejo, disappear/desaparecer, path/camino and paint/pintar.
The words inspired the story of a protagonist looking back at his life; its dramas, joys and disappointments. Whilst considering the different personas he has adopted, he finally accepts them all as aspects of his humanity.
The imagery for the film was created using AI, with a set of prompts suggesting a journey back through memories collected in an old journal of notes and faded photographs. The soundtrack is a remix of several sources: the BBC sound effects library and experimental soundscapes by John Bartmann and File under Toner.
First screened at Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival, Wellington, New Zealand 2023.
Popa Pete’s Pot 4 mins 30 secs UHD Video 2024
This film poem is a homage to Diane Blomfield’s father and explores the rhythms and repetitions of his daily domestic life, using AI generated ink and watercolour illustrations. It fondly recalls his evolving relationships with his children as the years pass by.
The poem was written and narrated by Diane Blomfield. The imagery and editing is by Martin Sercombe. The music was composed by Amos Turner.
First screened at Lyrical Visions Poetry Film Festival 2024
Songs of Vanishing 5 mins 47 secs UHD Video 2024
The film begins as a study of the movements of fog through a range of landscapes at dawn and dusk. As it progresses, the fog becomes witness to a quiet celebration of nature, involving shadowy figures in a surreal forest world. The poem acts as the voice in the forest and the land, responding to its changing moods as the fog moves through it. Inspired by e.e. cummings’ playful and innovative use of word layout, each line of the text explores different ways of co-existing with the landscape in the film frame, appearing and vanishing like the fog it describes.
Martin Sercombe’s songs of vanishing startlingly conveys the simulacral nomansland of this, our digital era. The poem decisively uses the artificial technologies of said era to both express and critique their ambivalent implications. Its title, songs of vanishing, is already a call to both beauty and loss, and the strange, uncanny beauty to be found in loss. In the film, we are presented with dream images of a shadowy, natural world generated by AI, with words appearing upon the screen that opaquely align with its visualizations. These words and images are nothing but virtual shadows of a real, referential thing: no object, only dream.
In a world where environmental degradation and synthetic disappearance lays waste to the quality of experience of all creatures, this message is delivered profoundly through its umbrous image-constructions, and without direct address by way of the word. This is why songs of vanishing haunts the viewer. Tyler Tesolin, Co-director Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival
The soundtrack by Manuel Gordiani was selected from the Free Music Archive.
Screened at Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival 2024 and the 12th Ó Bhéal Winter Warmer Poetry Festival 2024.
The Dance of Light UHD Video 10 mins 10 secs 2024
This experimental film explores the primal and transcendent nature of dance, set in a series of interconnected land and cityscapes. It is structured as a kaleidoscope of moments; each a self-contained vignette exploring another style of performative ritual or dance.
The journey begins on a conventional theatrical stage, where dancers perform before animated neon backdrops. As the film progresses, it sheds the constraints of the known, moving into the twilight of a dense forest where the boundaries between performer and environment blur. The trees, swirling fog and shards of sunlight each take part in the evolving transformations. The setting then shifts to an abandoned silo, a relic of industrial decay, where surreal ritual reverberates against cold, lifeless walls.
The city of Prague offers a further stark contrast, becoming the stage for playful expressions of contemporary rhythmic dance. Here, ritual adopts another form, as cyborg like creatures perform within the city’s labyrinthine architecture.
The film culminates in a foggy marshland, a liminal space where robed figures gather in silent reverence around holy egg-shaped relics. This location is a place out of time, where the sacred and the surreal coexist, and the act of worship becomes the dance, ancient and ineffable.
The imagery throughout the film was generated using Midjourney AI. These images were extended into motion using Runway and Kling AI. Finally, the footage was upscaled to UHD using VideoProc Converter AI. The soundtrack remixes a series of electroacoustic soundscapes by La Faena, El Wud and D.R. published on The Free Music Archive.
I was completely mesmerized by the beauty and the creativity. I loved all the different locations and dancers, and the soundtrack was amazing! I found myself trying to hear and understand all the whispering voices. I think the best word I can come up with is “exquisite”…. Sherri Anne (Flickr Photographer)
First screened at The Button Factory, Auckland 2024.
Passing Clouds UHD Video 6 mins 42 secs 2024
Poet and author Ron Riddell suggested this project as a means to illustrate his forthcoming book of haiku Passing Clouds, inspired by his travels through New Zealand, Colombia and Spain. In the foreword to the book he writes: “Writing haiku refreshes, it provides light, air, breathing space. The haikuist or haiguin can take his time; focus on details of landscape, of life, from his bedroom window or whilst taking an afternoon walk among tall, leafy trees. A haiku is a sudden joy, an awakening, an epiphany.” Inspired by these words, Sercombe used AI to visualise moving image variants of the haiku: dramatic moments that unfold their micro-stories in 10 second clips. The poems and video clips are then juxtaposed side by side.
“Each moment is a marvel of beauty and symbolism. Fantastic composition.” Ston Miller, Photographer
First screened at The Button Factory, Auckland in September 2024.
Meredith and the Lions UHD Video 2 mins 20 secs 2024
This is a short poetry film inspired by a piano solo by Circus Marcus. The original imagery was generated in Midjourney, the video was generated in Kling AI, then extended in Premiere Pro.
Comments from viewers on Flickr:
“Superb combination musically and visually.” Will Bubba
“Great use of AI – I really like how you play with the different themes and combine them coherently! We are living in a storm of change on the AI front.” Kai Sairanen
Quietude UHD Video 2 mins 25 secs 2024
Quietude is a poem film that captures a journey through the twilight of an ancient forest. The camera drifts slowly and meditatively over intricate details; leaves quivering in a soft breeze or a shaft of moonlight piercing dense fog. Accompanied by a sparse piano piece by Serge Quadrado, the film suggests that, in observing nature with patience and reverence, we can glimpse the divine in the most simple, transient moments.
Comments from viewers on Flickr:
“Your creativity has no limits. This is a beautiful example of incredible images paired with calming inspirational words and well chosen music.” Vera Weist
“Lovely. Images and imagery collaborate exquisitely. I’m really liking the “yearning fern” especially. Pushing the boundaries ever further Martin, very well done indeed.” Tim aka TeeJayPh
Glistening UHD Video 5 mins 50 secs 2024
This film explores the transient beauty of water in motion. AI generated imagery simulates the effect of animating moving water with a macro lens and/or a slow motion camera with an extreme shutter speed. The film has had over 35,000 views on Youtube, making it my most popular film to date!
“This is one of the most excruciatingly beautiful things I have seen in a very long time and certainly in the AI space. Congratulations.” Roland Chadwick, Composer
“A very worthwhile use of AI, unlike much I’ve seen. I could watch this for hours.” Rich Saunders
The north sings stillness 7 mins 54 secs UHD Video 2025
This poetry film is a collaboration between film maker Martin Sercombe and classical guitarist Roland Chadwick. It is a portrait of a fictional land in the Arctic Circle, inhabited by sea birds, polar bears and arctic hares. The film begins in the heart of midwinter and gradually transitions to early spring. The struggle of life’s battle with the harsh winter elements is tempered by the beauty of ice in all its forms. The improvised guitar work forms an intimate dialogue with this unfolding drama set in the far north.
Screened at Nature & Culture – Poetry Film Festival 2025.
“Flipping heck, Martin, that’s next level fantastic. Spot on imagery, words and music too. Inspirational indeed. You’re really on the cutting edge of this stuff. Really good.” Tim (Flickr)
“A masterpiece , stunning , eerie and the unbelievably fitting music.” Gali Stein
invasion 3 mins 30 secs UHD video 2025
A poetry film collaboration between myself, poet Edna Heled, and the music ensemble Sky Circle.
Migration 5 mins 14 secs UHD Video 2025
A video inspired by Microchasm, a track from the ambient album, A Storytelling of Rooks by Sky Circle. It tells the story, without words, of a people fleeing ecological catastrophe.
“A deeply philosophical animation and poetry. The branches are like lines of verse, the movement like emotions and thoughts — your video is a treasure trove of inspiration and ideas..” Layla Fudashkina, Film Maker
Song of the Night 3 mins 45 secs UHD Video 2025
Song of the Night is a short animated poem, following Wishbone the Cat on his search through the city of Barcelona in search of his friend, the poet. It was made with a young audience in mind.
The images were generated in Midjourney, adjusted in Photoshop and animated in Kling. The music is by Serge Quadrado.
Serenade 6 mins 53 secs UHD Video 2025
Serenade is a watercolour animation inspired by a poem by Ron Riddell, from his chapbook Songs for Dylan. To quote Ron Riddell, the poem is an ode to ”the Dionysian troubadour, the tragic poet-genius who dies fully-empowered, young and in exile.. He was a master wordsmith; a craftsman-alchemist-metaphysician.”
The soundtrack music was composed by Mark Lingard.
“I almost always like what you do, but this time you have outdone yourself; the atmosphere and the colour of the images are wonderful, the music, the narration – precious.” Guillermo Jano López, Photographer
Threadbones 10 mins UHD Video 2025
Perched on a floating island, a secret world hums with quiet ritual. Its fabric inhabitants, stitched from patchwork, hessian and thread, bustle through strange customs, running machines, baking, dancing and whispering in a mysterious language.
As dusk settles, they gather in the village square. A choir sings a haunting aria, children clutch balloons and couples wander past glowing shopfronts down to the waterfront. The film unfolds like a silent observer, unable to explain this hypnotic world of dream logic.
Waltz of the Ragspines 3 mins 37 secs UHD 2025
In the hour before the moon climbs high, bugles call from the rooftops and drums answer from the alleys. Doors creak open, and the ragspine folk drift toward the square, pulled as if by an invisible thread. Faces glow in the lamplight, stitched eyes fixed on the rising stage.
Then the waltz begins. Every hand, gloved or bare, finds another. Every step sends a ripple through the cobblestones, until the whole town sways in one long breath, skirts whirling, boots stamping, shadows turning like clockwork gears.
The dancers part for the solos. Out of the crowd emerge players with contraptions of brass and wood, barrel organs that spit whistles, groans, and sighs. Melodies stumble and leap, strange and crooked, tumbling over each other in the night air.
And at last, the chimes. Hung from ladders, doorframes and the ear of a patchwork rodent, they sway in a slow wind. The tones fall into place—accidental yet inevitable—until one voice rises above them: the Songstress of Sadness. A thin thread of sound gathers every joy, every loss and knots the town together in the dark.
The Ragspine Circus 3 mins 13 secs UHD 2025
The Ragspine Circus drifts into view beneath its tattered tent, a dream stitched together from scraps and shadows. A lion stitched from pale velvet roars, gothic clowns ride hippos as Ragspine creatures bounce on coloured balls. At the heart of it all, an enigmatic Victorian princess, pale as porcelain, surveys the spectacle with a gaze that is both regal and otherworldly. Presiding over this uncanny menagerie, the master of ceremonies juggles blazing torches, each arc of fire drawing the motley crowd of Threadbone and Ragspine creatures deeper into a performance where marvel slides easily into menace, and every stitch holds the promise of unraveling.
Song of the Selkies 3 mins 55 secs UHD Video 2026
Selkie mythology involves shapeshifting seal-folk from Scottish, Irish, and Norse folklore who live as seals in the ocean but can shed their skins to become beautiful humans, often leading to tragic love stories with mortals where their hidden skin is stolen, trapping them until they inevitably return to the sea. These creatures embody longing, transformation and the boundary between the human and marine worlds, sometimes featuring children born with webbed feet.
The imagery for this film was generated in Midjourney and animated in Kling, using its lip sync and voice over features.
Dog Lightning 4 mins 55 secs UHD Video 2026
Dog Lightning is a nocturnal black-and-white reverie set in Manhattan at midnight, during a violent rainstorm that turns the city into a threshold between the ordinary and the uncanny.
By the Hudson River, a woman waits in the downpour, holding her coat closed with one arm and a trembling dog with the other. She is waiting for someone who never arrives. Across the city, beneath bridges and along soaked streets, other figures endure the storm in isolation: a man sheltering under concrete with a hairless cat pressed to his chest, its calm unnerving; a woman standing beneath an umbrella that offers little protection from either the rain or her solitude; anonymous pedestrians crossing streets bent forward, as if resisting an invisible force.
The storm intensifies. Umbrellas shudder, strain, and finally escape their owners, breaking free in sudden acts of flight. One by one, they are lifted into the air and carried across the Hudson River, black shapes spinning and tearing against the fog like wounded birds.
“What an astonishing retro monochrome piece — a masterful creation that captures a city of living beings and the emptiness that surrounds it.” Minoru Karamatsu
The Gatherers UHD Video 3 mins 2026
The film follows a day in the life of three forest children and their animal friends, as they prepare for their evening feast.
Made using Midjourney, Kling Omni and Premiere.
Life with Doris UHD Video 3 mins 45 secs 2026
Doris lives in a small house with Eleanor, a sleek black cat and Horace, a scruffy dog who is forever hungry. Morning unfolds through vacuuming and laundry, then drifts into a countryside walk.
At the village pub, Doris enjoys a generous beer and a dance with the barman. Intoxicated and lovelorn, she rides a Highland cow and encounters a sheep, whilst her pets float through a dream world. After a visit to the butcher’s shop, Doris prepares the evening meal. Soon, bed time returns.
The film traces companionship in its simplest form: three beings moving through a daily routine that occasionally wanders into the absurd . Made with Midjourney and Kling AI.
Clockwork City 6 mins 5 Secs UHD 2026
In a vast steampunk metropolis, where domestic androids are manufactured by the thousands, perfection is the only acceptable outcome. Each machine is inspected, approved, and dispatched to serve a household. But one android, Zella, fails her quality test. Declared defective for reasons no one can quite explain, she is dumped behind the factory.
That night, instead of shutting down, Zella climbs out of the dumpster and escapes into a labyrinth of foggy streets. Alone and uncertain, she encounters Cedric, a young scavenger struggling to repair his battered flying car. With a simple touch, Zella quietly fixes the broken engine. The machine comes to life, and in that shared moment of surprise and laughter, an unlikely friendship begins. After a wild joy ride above the city, they wander through markets, abandoned amusement parks, and forgotten corners.
Wherever Zella touches discarded junk, it mysteriously transforms: a pile of rags assembles into a cheerful one-man band, and a rusted pile of cogs becomes a clockwork cat who joins the couple.
Yet the shadow of the factories remains. Cedric and Zella realize that their fragile freedom might easily be taken away. So, they make a decision, buy a map of the waterways, and leave the city forever in Cedric’s old houseboat.
Clockwork City is a gentle fable about freedom, companionship and the quiet magic of second chances. The film suggests that what society discards may yet hold the power to create a new and more humane world.
The album containing the soundtrack music by Sky Circle is here: https://lamsound.com/sky-circle/
The Moon Jar UHD 5 mins 5 secs 2026
In a town where every house narrows toward a point, Freda moves quietly between observation and care. She is a naturalist of small wonders: making patient sketches and studying the creatures that roam the local marshes and woods.
Nearby, Sox and Ruffian find their domestic world overtaken by tiny black bugs. The invasion is precise, almost deliberate and very disturbing. Faced with this quiet upheaval, they turn to Freda.
She arrives with a simple device: a large jar filled with jam. The ants gather, reorganise, and willingly enter the sweetness. Freda carries them back to the meadow where a different fate awaits them.
Martin Sercombe 