UPDATE APR 15: The 2025 contest is now closed. See you at the film festival!
Tickets are on sale now for this year’s exciting film festival event! Joy us on May 22 at VIU Cowichan, as we screen all the top entries from this year’s contest, enjoy live poetry and guest speakers, and award our winners live. Event open to the public. All ages welcome. Tickets are $10 plus fees.
Finalists will be personally invited, along with their peers and community, to celebrate their creativity and receive their prizes in front of a well-deserved audience. Doors open at 6:30, event starts at 7. There will be a complimentary reception to follow at Just Jake’s Restaurant (around 8:30/9pm) with snacks and refreshments.
Purchase tickets and secure your seat at this year’s film festival today!
Explore this page to see background information, contest criteria, previous winners as well as other video submissions shown at our previous fall showcase events.
We are excited to see what’s in store for us this year!
This competition is inspired by the late Michael Coleman (MC), founder of the Cowichan Foundation, husband, father, lawyer, mayor, early adopter of reconciliation, community leader, and avid poet. He believed in the power of storytelling and published multiple books of poetry in his lifetime. By uplifting the voices of our youth in this competition, we aim to honour his legacy of beautiful poetry and unequivocal service to the Cowichan Valley while supporting the leaders of tomorrow.
The contest is open to high school aged students in the Cowichan Valley and Ganges areas. Students must submit a 1-5 minute video performing or illustrating their original poetry, along with a short biography and a written copy of their work. As visual poetry, the visual content included must work to enhance the experience of the poem. Contestants will be judged on their submission as a whole, with both the written work as well as the video being scored.
This competition is open to all themes – no topic is off limits; however, vulgar, homophobic racist, sexist, or ableist content will not be permitted. We will also not accept any videos or poems produced solely with AI.
Make us think! Get creative! We look forward to seeing what the students have in store for us this year.
Click below to see full contest criteria.
Click the button below to submit your contest entry (requires Google sign-in).
Be sure to read the full criteria before doing so. Please note the maximum file size for a video is 10GB but it is highly encouraged to keep below 2GB.
Questions? Email info@cowichanfoundation.com
Thank you to all who joined us for our annual MC Poetry Contest Showcase this past fall. We were honoured to see such a wonderful turnout to celebrate our talented young poets and raise funds for the next contest.
VIU was the perfect place for this event and all our guests thoroughly enjoyed the speakers, curated silent auction, and tasty refreshments.
Check out the showcase page for more information and to see the videos we showed!
Pemberton Holmes