Part 3: in correspondence (ft. Lakshmi Padmanabhan)

This month, we're joined by Lakshmi Padmanabhan to discuss two films centered around the acts of letter-reading: first up is the widely heralded News From Home, Akerman's 1976 feature juxtaposing the letters her mother wrote to her in the early 70s with contemporary images of New York life. After that, we zoom ahead a decade to look at her less well-known (and much less-seen) Letters Home, a filmed adaptation of a play derived from Sylvia Plath's correspondences with her mother. Non-Akerman works referenced this month: BLKNWS (2019, d. Khalil Joseph) Nasir (2020, d. Arun Karthik) Taxi Driver (1976, d. Martin Scorsese) God Told Me To (1976, d. Larry Choen) Music used in this episode: dEUS, Blondie, News From Babel. If you like the show or what we do generally, consider throwing us a few bucks to help cover our costs: https://paypal.me/kateandsimonpod Our intro music is performed by Sundar Subramanian. You can stream and buy his work here: https://sundarsubramanian.bandcamp.com/