Alexis Krasilovsky
Our Middle Grade novel, Tuki the Tiger, won the Platinum Award in the "Best Novel" category of the Nature Without Borders International Film Festival.
"TUKI THE TIGER" is also a children's animated feature musical screenplay, which shows extremely high streaming and box office projections in our Largo.AI report.
"TUKI THE TIGER" is the winner of "Best Animation Screenplay" at the Oxford Script Awards and "Best War Theme Screenplay" at the Berlin International Screenwriting Festival. It was also one of three finalists in the 2024 Gemfest International Screenplay Competition.
Our second-to-last draft of "TUKI THE TIGER" won Honorable Mention in the December 2023 New York Screenwriting Awards in the category "Feature Screenplay/ Animation." That's a bit better than the Quarter-Finalist Awards we won in the San Francisco International Screenwriting Competition, the Faith in Film International Film Festival and Screenwriting Competition, and the L.A. International Screenplay Awards Summer 2023.
We have recently locked down our final draft, which is currently an Official Selection at the Ethos Film Awards 2024 in Santa Monica, California. We look forward to making progress quickly towards seeing this children's animated feature get made! Super thanks to my co-screenwriter Shameem Akhtar and our Storyboard Artist Tiger Nazir in Bangladesh, as well as to our book agent, Eric Lincoln Miller (3iBooks Literary Agency) who has sent our Middle Grade novel, Tuki the Tiger out to publishers.
For more on folk artist Tiger Nazir and "TUKI THE TIGER", see this feature article: newagebd.net/article/222580/i-aspire-to-promote-culture-tradition-among-people-nazir
For more on the story of how the"TUKI THE TIGER"story came about, see: this Celluloid Magazine feature by Sydney Levine
Session #1 - Topic: "Bringing Stories to Screen: Navigating Rights and Acquisitions"
- April 1, 2023
Guest Speaker: Alexis Krasilovsky
Excited that two of my flower haiku are part of the new anthology, "When Flowers Sing," which includes 90 poets from 66 countries, edited by Christina Isobel (a thousand flowers, 2024), available through the book's website, athousandflowers.org/when-flowers-sing and amazon. My copies just arrived, and I can hardly wait to read the rest of it!
The new screenplay, "FLOATING LESSONS," is an Official Selection of the Los Angeles International Screenplay Awards and Official Selection at the 2025 Oxford Script Awards, in addition to being a Semi-Finalist at the New York International Women Festival and the B!tchFest Film Festival and Screenplay Contest, as well as receiving an Honorable Mention at the Big Apple Film Festival Screenplay Competition.
The screenplay is an adaptation of the first part of my novel, "A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman." We're looking for publishers now. (Producers can wait, I think.)
The Cyclone Song (Hold Onto Your Dreams) has won Best Music Video at the Asian Talent International Film Festival. It also won Best Music Video at the Dreamz Catcher International Film Festival in Kolkata, and Best Music Video of the Month at the Sundarbans International Film Festival and the Better Earth International Film Festival.
The music video also placed as Special Mention for "Best Music Video" in Global Shorts (Los Angeles), as well as Finalist in the Round The Global Film & Music Festival and Semi-Finalist in the Hawaii International Film Festival, the Beach Cities Inspirational Film Festival and the Environment/Sustainability category of the Oslo Independent Film Festival. It is an Official Selection in the Swedish International Film Festival, the Asian Talent International Film Festival 2024, the Liberty Films Festival (Athens, Greece), and the Los Angeles Movie & Music Video Awards Festival 2024.
"Moving Poems" interviewed Alexis Krasilovsky on June 22 regarding her poetry film, "What Memphis Needs". Patricia Killelea writes: "The film offers a unique view of social inequalities prevalent in Memphis, Tennessee throughout the 1970s and 80s but feels just as relevant today."
The article includes a link to the 6-minute film. (Please note: Click on the circled heart on the Vimeo in order for your "like" to count, instead of clicking on the "like" button.)
The Yale Film Archive has been awarded a National Film Preservation Award to preserve "End of the Art World," the film that Alexis Krasilovsky made about the New York art world back in 1971, starring Andy Warhol, Bob Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtentein, Jo Baer and Michael Snow.
The premiere of the restored version will take place at Yale at 7 PM on March 7, 2024 as a double-bill with Vera Chytilova's surrealist comedy/drama "Daisies" and a Q&A with Alexis, at the Humanities Quadrangle (the old Hall of Graduate Studies), 320 York Street, New Haven, Connecticut. The public is welcome.
(Alexis Krasilovsky has fictionalized the entire process of making "End of the Art World" in the novel, "A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman," about a young woman determined to become a filmmaker despite the obstacles.)
web.library.yale.edu/news/2021/06/yales-first-film-created-undergraduate-woman-be-preserved
"Positive Thinking" (2023) won "Best 1-Minute Film" at the Filmzen International Competition in Paris, France on June 28 and screened at the Ukrainian Dream Film Festival, held at the Crimean Tatar Cultural Center in Odesa, Ukraine along with "A Petal Pushed By a Breeze" (featuring a poem written and recited by internationally acclaimed writer Rodger Kamenetz (author of The Jew in the Lotus) on May 28.
"Positive Thinking" won "Best One Minute Film" at the Cult Jury Film Festival in Gurgaon, India. And it won the "Free Speech" award at the August/September 2023 Gangtok International Film Festival in Goan, Sikkim.
"Positive Thinking" is the monthly winner for August-September 2023 in the "Free Speech" category at the Druk International Film Festival (Paro, Bhutan). It is an Official Selection at the Black Swan International Film Festival (Kolkata, India) and an Official Selection of the Festival Cinemistica's "Espejos de Amor" ("Mirrors of Love") in Granada, Spain, screening in November 2023.
"Rafael", which features a poem by Rodger Kamenetz from his new book, The Missing Jew: Poems 1976-2022, screened at the Sofia International Film Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria along with "The Parking Lot of Dreams" (2021) on May 20.
"Rafael" was awarded Best One-Minute film at the Luis Buñuel Memorial Awards in Kolkata, India, and won "Best 1-Minute Film" at the World Film Carnival in Singapore in July 2023.
"A Petal Pushed By a Breeze" won "Best One-Minute Film" for the Tagore International Film Festival, and "Best Mobile Film" at the World Film Carnival in Singapore in July 2023. It also won "Best One-Minute Film" for August-September 2023 at the Druk International Film Festival in Paro, Bhutan.
"A Petal Pushed By a Breeze" is an Official Selection of the Liber Films International Festival, to be held in Athens, Greece on February 4, 2024.
"Verse for a Second Childhood" is an Official Selection of the Oodaaq Festival - part of a Friday, May 17th screening at La Parchemenerie (Rennes, France) of films about feminist and queer struggles.
"Verse for a Second Childhood"
is an Official Selection of The Artists Forum Spoken Word Competition held October 14, 2023 in New York City.
"Verse for a Second Childhood" screened at Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China on November 19, 2023 (along with Krasilovsky's earlier videopoem, "Pastriology," from her global feature documentary "Let Them Eat Cake") as part of a Zoom workshop, "Crafting and Sharing Videopoetry with Alexis Krasilovsky." For an article in Chinese about the event, see: fsc.hunnu.edu.cn/info/1345/12823
"From Dhaka To Hollywood? Tuki the Tiger Takes a Trip: An Unusual Project", an article by Sydney Levine, was originally a keynote speech that she gave at the Dhaka International Conference of Women in Cinema at the Dhaka International Film Festival in January 2023.
The article is about the novel and screenplay for a children's animated musical feature that Shameem Akhtar and Alexis Krasilovsky have been co-writing. Once the Writers Strike is over, Shameem and Alexis look forward to getting that screenplay out there. And meanwhile, their literary agent, Eric Lincoln Miller, is preparing to send our novel, "Tuki the Tiger" (for Middle Grade kids ages 7-12) to publishers. Click this link to read the article (pages 4-10 in "Celluloid: A Magazine on Creative Cinema," Vol.44 Issues 1&2, July 30, 2023):
(Background illustration by Tiger Nazir.)
Still: Boy cutting sugar cane, Telangana, India.
Co-Producer: Sanjoy Ghosh; Unit Director: Ajit Nag
When "Let Them Eat Cake" first screened in 2014, it was ahead of its time, with scenes pertaining to global warming, food inequality, starvation, farmer suicides and refugees, in addition to some of the most beautiful pastries from a rich variety of cultures. We're excited that the world is ready to watch "Let Them Eat Cake".
If you missed the on-line screening at the Ceres Food Film Festival, October 16-20, 2022, you can still watch the film for free with a public library card on Kanopy.com.
Julian Joseph of the Ceres Food Film Festival interviews Alexis Krasilovsky, Writer/Director, "Let Them Eat Cake".
"The film is really powerful - as well as beautifully done. A remarkable feat to coordinate filming on five continents and in at least as many languages." - Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Joseph S. Atha Professor in Humanities, Stanford University
"Great interview, great film. So much we shouldn't look away from." -- Barbara Twigg - Washington, DC
Alexis Krasilovsky's new film, "The Parking Lot of Dreams," has won the Best Original Concept Award (Experimental Film) at the Jane Austen International Film Festival, in the UK.
The film also won the following awards in India: an Outstanding Achievement Award (Mobile Film) and monthly Award Winner (Experimental Film) at the Black Swan International Film Festival; Best Mobile Film Award at the Luis Buñuel Memorial Awards Competition; and an Outstanding Achievement Award (Experimental Film) at the Tagore International Film Festival, and won "Best Quarantine Film" at the Sofia International Film Festival.
"The Parking Lot of Dreams" is a Semi-Finalist at the Tokyo Women Film Festival.
The film was an Official Selection of the following festivals: CalArts Expo, The International Poetry Film Festival, Hollywood; Amsterdam Short Film Festival; Nevada Women's Film Festival; San Diego Art Film Festival; Marina del Rey Film Festival; and the International Video Film Festival (Athens, Greece).
"Very beautiful...the combination of the verbal and visual images makes a strong overall effect."
- Rodger Kamenetz, author of "The Jew and the Lotus" and "Dream Logic"
"Powerful. Unsettling. Moving."
- Miriam Mills
"…Highly original work! I read it as a poetic meditation on loneliness, alienation and anxiety, which also echoes the spatial, social and gendered subdivisions within and outside of the city.
The images are beautifully reconstructed, disfigured and displaced, which creates both a kinetic collision and harmony between words, images and locations within the space you explored.
I like that you playfully replace images of roads, highways and other more evocative places with the parking lot, which typically functions as a pit stop in the road movie genre …"
- Kornelia Boczkowska, Ph.D., author of "Lost Highways, Embodied Travels: The Road Movie in American Experimental Film and Video" orcid.org/0000-0003-0875-9209
"The Parking Lot of Dreams" 
was also an Official Selection of the VideoBardo International Videopoetry Festival (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and the Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival (Wellington, New Zealand) in November 2023. It was also an Official Selection for the 2024 Black Owl Film Festival (Bodrum, Turkey), the Liber Films International Festival (Athens, Greece) and the Oodaaq Festival (Rennes, France).
Three of the poems from the film are also included in Alexis Krasilovsky's new book, "Watermelon Linguistics: New and Selected Poems" (Cyberwit: January 2022 - available on Amazon at amazon.com/dp/8182538262.)
Here is the link for streaming the "The Parking Lot of Dreams": vimeo.com/ondemand/newyearnewwork2022
Watch an interview among the filmmakers in the NY Film-Makers Coop New Year/New Work Festival from March 19 here:
youtube.com/watch?v=ZKj7swqjQC4&t=952
The making of "The Parking Lot of Dreams" starts at 15:52.
"The Parking Lot of Dreams" is now available at Canyon Cinema, along with other titles: canyoncinema.com/2022/02/24/now-available-13-digital-files-from-alexis-krasilovsky/, and at the New York Film-Makers' Coop.
The Parking Lot of Dreams by Alexis Krasilovsky
"It may be that in our post-modern and post-industrial society much of the enchantment of the world is drained and replaced by the dull practical details of everyday life. Perhaps also the parking lot can be seen as a "poster boy" for such a situation. It is a flat space with the singular practical purpose of housing automobiles when they are not being used. The parking lot reflects no aesthetic concerns because it is not meant to be occupied by people. There is no street life at all and anyone spotted there will be quickly traversing the gray asphalt expanse in order to get to or away from their vehicle without stopping to smell the roses (and of course there would not be any roses).
The Parking Lot of Dreams by Alexis Krasilovsky flies in the face of all of this.
In her video the parking lot is transformed into a series of graphical geometric abstractions and neo-primitive figures. The textures of asphalt and reflective paint always bring us back to the titular subject, and yet, we are equally swept away into a world suggested by its vaguely ethnographic figures. This world might be of an African, Native American, or Aboriginal Australian tribe – a world perhaps of evocative magic. This uncomfortable combination evinces a wacky sense of humor that is underscored by Krasilovsky's witty and occasionally rhyming voice-over: "We'll take Kabbalah, or an Uber to Allah, just get us going on the right road" These words seem to indicate a desire for the immaterial or spiritual (or perhaps even the digital or virtual), while the character of a young woman in ballet shoes tiptoes across the hard reality of the parking lot.
And lest we become too comfortable Krasilovsky warns the post-modern seeker 'and as for you artists well on your creative paths – there's indecision!' "
-- Gregg Biermann, Co-President, New American Cinema Group/Filmmakers Cooperative (New York); Professor of Cinema Studies, Bergen Community College.
Finalist, 2022 International Book Awards
(Poetry - General category)
Available on Amazon
and Amazon UK
Read this Pegasus Literary review of "Watermelon Linguistics."
"The subtle power and intense imagination in these poems will certainly appeal to all readers. No doubt, the wealth of imagination and deeply inspired poetic fancy in these poems are quite remarkable.
'Watermelon Linguistics: New and Selected Poems' by Alexis Krasilovsky is a very powerful collection, full of vivid imagery."
-- Ellyn Maybe, poet/musician/lyricist
"Seismic poetry! 'Watermelon Linguistics' bites your conscience. Visceral as Garcia Lorca with the driving rhythms of Bartok, it penetrates your innermost, oft-repressed thoughts. Crying out against gender and racial injustice, it deserves our rapt attention."
-- Virginia Mariposa Dale, author of "Rich White Americans"
"What a journey poet Alexis Krasilovsky takes you on in her new collection of powerful and deft poems: WATERMELON LINGUISTICS. Intimate and conceptual, she communicates observed truths through vivid imagery and makes you feel her words."
-- Jocelyn Wright, performing writer, executive drama supervisor for TNT's
THE CLOSER
"Alexis Krasilovsky's poems are as lucid and vivid as the stark sorrows of life. The nuanced emotions reflected in her poems are endowed with the experience she has garnered through life and her films. The inequalities, injustice and social discrimination of a land so far away, strikes a vulnerable chord very close to home and make you realize how human failings trump political boundaries."
-- Sanjoy Ghosh, film and theatre director (India)
Alexis Krasilovsky's poetry celebrates, even as it chronicles the ruptures of the mythical, the political and the "sexual. The poems are attuned to the racial and gender divides of post 1960s America and offer a mirror to the dark heart of art and relationships. Her voice is an assured, witty, feminist cry in the nation's crazy historical wilderness. She reminds us of how much freedom we have and how many wounds still need healing."
-- Ramón García, Ph.D., author of The Chronicles
"I cried, laughed, and was awe-struck. I felt I was there with her during her time in Memphis. So much beauty, tragedy, and truth that you MUST read!"
-- Gilda Graham, author, "Penumbra"
Film adaptation workshop with American professional at EMK
Alexis Krasilovsky conducted a five-day workshop on screenplay adaptation for the International Academy of Film and Media in Dhaka, Bangladesh, as well as serving as one of two American delegates at the International Conference of Women in Cinema and the "West Meets East" Conference at the Dhaka International Film Festival. While in Dhaka, the feature documentary which Krasilovsky wrote and directed, "Let Them Eat Cake," also screened at the EMK (Edward Kennedy) Center.
The workshop was based on Krasilovsky's book, Great Adaptations: Screenwriting and Global Storytelling (Routledge: NY/London, 2018), 2nd Place Winner, 2019 International Writers Awards.
Watermelon Linguistics
Great
Adaptations
Let Them Eat Cake
Women Behind the Camera
End of the Art World
Beale Street
Epicenter U
Exile
Mr Boogie Woogie
