Love letters at Criticine

For the month of love--

One of Alex Tioseco's last projects was a special issue of Criticine that would publish love letters from film enthusiasts and filmmakers, dedicated to filmmakers or films or even men or women somehow related to filmmaking that they passionately love. Then Alex died, and as I wrote in my tribute to him, I believed any possibility of the issue ever being finished died with him.

Happily, his friends Ben Slater and May Ingawanij decided to finish the issue anyway, and for their extraordinary effort and for this beautifully rendered special issue, I thank them.

You should read it. Because of Alex' tragic death, many of the letters (including an intriguingly lovely short film, by Apichatpong Weerasethakul) are offered in the memory of the webzine's former founder.

Mine isn't, unfortunately (or perhaps not unfortunate--some of the letters are heartbreaking and I feel it would have been embarrassing to even try approach their emotive power). When Alex asked me I immediately knew to whom I would write.

The result was finished in an hour or two with very little editing, one of the quickest (if not easiest) pieces I've ever written. The only reason it took that long (and why the process wasn't at all easy) was because I had to decide what to leave out.

So here it is. As for her identity, I have this series of emails to offer by way of a clue:

Hi Noel

I'm assuming you won't want to use film stills to accompany your letter for Criticine. (Perhaps I'm wrong!) Do you have images in mind, or no images?

_______ chose some photographs to use for the site...there's a couple of profile images...these might be appropriate. I could send them to you.

Dear ___;

Hm. Could you send the pics? Also, do you have one from the film ________? Not a poster, a still?

Hi Noel, No I don't have the still from ________. Do you? Below are _______'s pics.

Dear ___;

I don't have any pics either. I think the black and white one is better.

And that's all you'll get out of me. Enjoy!