The Poeticas 2nd Annual Film Festival takes place on Sunday, April 12,  at the Manteca Senior Center, 295 Cherry Lane.

The free community event from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. features local artisans, food vendors, and a showcase of micro-films created from original poetry, focusing on community literacy and the arts.

There is a $10 donation for the film screening that starts at 1 p.m.

It will feature entries where indie filmmakers and poets have transformed poetry into microfilm.

The event is designed to bring filmmakers, poets, and neighbors together for an afternoon where stories, images, and language meet to spark real conversations and compassion.

Last year, 20 submissions originating from Manteca to Maine and West Hollywood to Latvia were shown at the film festival.

The screenings anchor a day that involves Manteca Art Guild members displaying their work, writing tables, and more.

Manteca’s official poet laureate Tara Rico founded  the event last year.

Her goal is to connects people with themselves — and the community — through the power of words.

That puts her at the vanguard of the Manteca effort to grow the city’s arts and cultural offerings whether it is manning a street fair booth with activities to introduce people to poetry or organizing monthly gatherings of writers at the House of Mokha.

 The film festival is the outgrowth of experiences she had working in the film industry while in Southern California as well as similar ventures in other communities.

Thinking a film festival for poetry might be odd in the eyes of at least a few, could be derived from the fact some believe poetry is a rigid endeavor with hard fast rules. As Rico noted, nothing is farther from that being the case.

Information about the Poeticas Institute can be accessed at poeticasinstitute.org.