In summer 2009, I watched my first slow film. I didn’t know that at the time. I had read an article about Béla Tarr and was curious about his film The Man from London, which, it was said, contained very few cuts. A couple of months later, I tried to sit through Tarr’s seven-hour long film Satantango (1994), which was surprisingly easy.
I began to write about Tarr, because I felt that I had to put some thoughts on paper. When I showed it to a professor of mine, he said: “You are effectively writing about Slow Cinema.” I had no idea what he was on about, but he told me which copy of the Sight & Sound film magazine to pick up to read more. That was in early 2010.
Since then, I have watched over 300 slow films from around the world, over 200 of which have been written about for my website The Art(s) of Slow Cinema, a blog I set up in autumn 2012. Over the years, the blog has become the single largest English-language database on Slow Cinema and it continues to grow. It is not all about films. I also write about literature associated with it, even if remotely at times.
If my website is the main platform for my writing on slow films, it is not the only one. I have been invited to podcasts and conferences to speak about the subject; I have had a chance to publish articles on other digital platforms and have contributed to festival/film catalogues. I am currently preparing my first monograph on Slow Cinema and I’m hoping to publish it around October 2021. And, on top of all that, I joined the wonderful programming team of the Slow Film Festival.
Despite everything else that I’m doing – small bits and pieces here and there – Slow Cinema is where my heart is. It is what I have become attached to over the years and I’m looking forward to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Art(s) of Slow Cinema in autumn 2022!
The anniversary will see online talks and hopefully a physical screening event. In the meantime, you can browse through my blog to get to know my work or buy my first (self-published) monograph on the subject, Human Condition(s) – An aesthetic of cinematic slowness.