Hello, Roger.

My name is Roberto, I’m a 23-year-old Brazilian admirer of your work. I’m a frequent reader of this website and have read a few of the articles on City Journal and passages from your books dozens of times. I applied for a scholarship in the Scuola Nazionale di Cinema, in Rome. The task given by the school to the candidates was to deliver a movie with maximum running time of 10 minutes. Italian cinema has been dead and gone for many years, but I thought this was the only possible alternative for me, a broke student from Brazil to make movies with good equipment without relying on public funding and –who knows– maybe learn something there. Well, I got rejected. They said the movie was too religious and abstract. Pfui! As an admirer of your essays and criticism, could you please take a look at what I’ve done? It would mean a lot.
So all I’m asking you is 10 minutes (or less if you find it boring and turn it off earlier) of your time that can make a huge difference to me, this unknown person on a small town on the other side of the globe.

You can watch it on Vimeo. Here’s the link:

Please be unmerciful.

Thank you in advance,
Roberto

PS to People from Pajamas Media: I know it’s off topic, but I could only find this way to contact Roger. If I committed a faux pas, I’m really sorry. Perhaps you could send this directly to him instead of leaving it here. Thanks.