Moments of poetry pierce through the mundane at a small-town grocery

A curiously compelling short, From Fish to Moon chronicles the rather unremarkable goings-on at a small grocery store in the town of Pahokee, Florida. Starting the day early, an employee, Jean Voltaire, makes small talk with coworkers and regulars, fiddles around with an in-store slot machine and, in the quiet moments, reads the epic poem The Conference of the Birds (c1177) by the Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar. Subdued and contemplative, the US filmmaker Kevin Contento’s work seems to ask viewers to find poetry, as his subject does, in small moments and the unlikeliest of places.