Lights! Camera! Poetry! In celebration of National Poetry Month, WritersCorps presented the Poetry Projection Project, a festival of short films based on youth writing on April 21 2012 at Mission Cultural Center.

The audience enjoyed a reading by three WritersCorps poets, followed by a screening of 10 short films. Then, special guest jurors Barry Jenkins, an award-winning filmmaker based in Oakland, and San Francisco Supervisor David Campos praised the work of the filmmakers and poets before announcing the winners of the festival.

The winners were:

Best of the Festival — Video made by an adult
“My Father, A Beautiful Animal” directed by Angela Reza Tures
Based on the poem “as pondus ominum/to the weight of all things” by Indiana Pehlivanova

Best of the Festival — Video made by youth
“World Through Mirror” directed by Tatyana Kulchinskaya
Based on an untitled poem by Hong Truong

Barry Jenkins is an award-winning filmmaker based in Oakland, CA. After graduating from Florida State University with a BA in English and a BFA in film, he relocated to Los Angeles, where he worked as an assistant to director Darnell Martin on the Oprah Winfrey production “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” His feature film debut, “Medicine for Melancholy,” was released in theaters by IFC Films and hailed as one of the best films of 2009 by A.O. Scott of the New York Times. Other projects include the shorts “Tall Enough,” “A Young Couple,” “Remigration” and “Chlorophyl.”

David Campos represents District 9 on the Board of Supervisors. He is a native of Puerto Barrios (Izabal), Guatemala, who came to the U.S. when he was 14. Although he did not speak the language, David excelled in school, graduating at the top of his class from Jefferson High School, in South Central Los Angeles. David earned scholarships to Stanford University and Harvard Law School, from which he graduated, respectively, in 1993 and 1996.

After a few years of private practice in some of the most prestigious law firms in the country, David became a Deputy City Attorney for the City and County of San Francisco. Prior to his election as Supervisor, David served as General Counsel to the San Francisco Unified School District and as a member of the San Francisco Police Commission. Since 2004, David has been an elected member of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee.