Cinema Love Letters

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 husband. Last night, I watched Krzysztof Kieslowski's BLUE as a tribute to the fact that she didn't let her grief turn her away from life.

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 preferable to exchanging actual words with her. It wasn't until ten years later that I baptised myself in the rest of Dylan's musical universe - and discovered my own artistic voice. Today, I am in a hurry to screen Fellini's LA DOLCE VITA in order to pay an hommage that is 28 years due.

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 my fear that I will hurt her - and vice versa.

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.

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 Music. Our experimental short form writing was thrown out as soon as it was composed. This podcast is for you, Kasia and Viki. I made it quickly, but I'm not discarding it.

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 a safe distance. As a tribute to our friendship and to all the sleepovers we had in those days, last night I watched THE ICE STORM for Neil - my high school bestie.

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 PANCHALI (India, 1955), which came out when Freddie was ten years old and attending boarding school in India.

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 was her own, 21-year old center of the world.

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 causing no stir whatsoever, I finally write a letter to the man himself.

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 Affleck's directorial debut.