My Polish grandmother spoiled me with winegums when I was little. She told great stories and embodied an unconditional love. What I never realized when I was a child, was how heartbroken she actually was all this time - over the loss of her hus

Dear Bob Dylan - LA DOLCE VITA (1960)

Apr 30th, 2021 7m 28s

When I was fourteen years old, my parents' Blonde on Blonde and Blood on the Tracks CD's proved the perfect soundtrack for my romantic imagination: dreaming away about a girl from school to the sound of track no. 5 on the former, was infinitely

Dear Wife Part Two - BOY MEETS GIRL (1984)

Mar 25th, 2021 9m 45s

I have to come back to Leos Carax' debut film. Its climactic scene, initially disregarded as a faux-pas, turns out to reveal an inner chamber of my own heart on closer scrutiny. The more I declare my love for my wife, the more I have to confess

Dear Wife Part One - BOY MEETS GIRL (1984)

Feb 24th, 2021 9m 7s

I watch an obscure film, the debut of French amour fou auteur Leos Carax, in honour of my wife of fifteen years. Her skin is soft. She loves to do lots of useful things. We travel back and forth between heaven and (truth be told, mostly) earth.

Dear sisters - I'VE BEEN 12 FOREVER (2004)

Feb 11th, 2021 9m 49s

As children, my sisters and I collaborated on all our works of art - none of which we actually considered as such. We had no inner critics to interrupt our video art, tv show hosting, dancing or our annual Christmas production of The Sound of M

Dear Neil - THE ICE STORM (1997)

Jan 22nd, 2021 9m 8s

In 1997 I was in love with a girl whose nose resembled Christina Ricci's. But sex was still something I desired and feared in equal measure. Having a serial monogamist for a best friend was a great way to learn all about the female anatomy from

Dear Freddie Mercury - PATHER PANCHALI (1955)

Dec 9th, 2020 7m 56s

From the age of ten to thirteen, Freddie Mercury was my hero and idol. His death of aids, at the age of 45, coincided with the end of my own childhood innocence. In this episode of the Cinema Love Letters podcast, I watch Satyajit Ray's PATHER

Dear mother - MASCULIN FEMININ (1966)

Oct 28th, 2020 8m 20s

I am a grandchild of Marx and Coca-Cola - and far from free. In this episode of the Cinema Love Letters podcast, filmmaker Finn Szumlas travels to the Paris of 1966: the Paris of Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina and of his own, Danish mother who

Dear Terrence Malick - EARTH (1930)

Sep 25th, 2020 7m 4s

In 2005 I spent a year writing my M.A. thesis, bringing together American filmmaker Terrence Malick with continental philosophers Martin Heidegger and Gilles Deleuze. Last night, after disappearing from the public eye for fifteen years and caus

Dear Daughter - LIGHT OF MY LIFE (2019)

Sep 24th, 2020 8m 17s

My 10-year-old daughter is asleep as I write this letter. She is beautiful, she tells great jokes and she is slowly becoming a woman. Last night I watched one of the most underappreciated American films of 2019, as a tribute to her: Casey Affle

Dear father - THE PLANET OF THE APES (1968)

Sep 24th, 2020 7m 29s

My father moved to Accra, Ghana with his family from Warsaw, Poland in 1963. Five years later they would relocate again, this time landing on the strange, flat surface of The Netherlands. It was 1968, the same year that the original The Planet

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